Castleford Tigers hero Luke Gale on facing Leeds, a golden season and why a Grand Final win would mean so much

It has been a great season for Gale, one that saw Cas claim the League Leaders Shield and him named Man of Steel - but he knows the Tigers must now finish the job

Luke Gale has enjoyed a golden season with Castleford but knows the Tigers must finish the job on Saturday night (Getty)

“I still don’t think I’ve got my head around it now,” Luke Gale says. He’s casting his mind back to Thursday night, the do-or-die moment in the Super League semi-final when one of the greatest seasons in the history of Castleford Tigers looked to be coming to an abrupt end.

Castleford were 22-20 down at home to St Helens. The clock had run down to zero. And Gale had a penalty just to the left of the sticks. Not a hard kick, but then under these circumstances nothing is easy. Gale kicked it to take the match into golden-point extra time. “I've got it boys, I’ll win us this game,” Gale told his team-mates in the huddle.

Minutes later, Gale was screaming for the ball just under 40 yards out. The drop goal was on. “Anywhere in the 40, I wanted to have a crack,” he remembers now. “As soon as it comes off your boot, you know. I looked for a second, and just set off running. Great feeling.”

What made Gale’s match-winning contribution so noteworthy was that barely a fortnight earlier, he had been in a hospital bed, having undergone emergency surgery to remove his appendix. “It was a pain I'd never had and wouldn't wish on anyone,” he explains candidly. “It was excruciating.”

And so Castleford are in the Grand Final, for the first time in Super League’s history. For Gale, it has been a golden, garlanded season, one that saw Cas claim the League Leaders Shield for the first time ever. On Tuesday night, his fellow professionals voted him the Steve Prescott Man of Steel, the award given to the season’s outstanding player.

This Saturday, in the Grand Final, Gale will come up against Leeds Rhinos, the team that spurned him at the age of 18. He will almost certainly begin this autumn’s World Cup as Wayne Bennett’s first-choice No7 for England. And yet Gale knows that if he fails to finish the job this Saturday, the whole season will feel like a failure.

“We all need to be at our best,” says Gale. “Leeds are a great side, they've been to a lot of Grand Finals and they will come and play well. I don't think we played that great Thursday; we ended up getting the job done by hook or by crook. Hopefully it's not that tight on Saturday. But everyone will need to be on their game.”

Gale was outstanding this season as the Tigers swept all before them in Super League (Getty)

Castleford will begin as favourites, having trounced their rivals in the regular season, including Leeds four times out of four. It has been a remarkable resurgence for a team playing Championship rugby just a decade ago, and barely hanging on to solvency and its Super League status when coach Daryl Powell took over in 2013. Slowly and by degrees, Powell has swung the ship around. And when Gale joined in 2015, he immediately liked what he saw.

“I owe Daryl everything really,” Gale says. “He’s been real good for me. You learn your trade more. He’s taught me the skills of a half-back and what he’s made here is a superb team; I can't speak highly enough of him.

“Whether you are 18 or 34, he wants you to perform to your best, and I think that's what we've done this year. Each individual has performed to his best, and that's why he is as good as he is.”

Gale's Tigers topped Super League before reaching the Grand Final (Getty)

Gale is a Leeds boy, who did his time at the club’s academy before leaving due to a lack of opportunities. Having Danny McGuire and Rob Burrow ahead of him, of course, was hardly going to help. “Obviously it was quite hard to kick them out of their position at 18, so I had to go somewhere else,” he says. “I went to Doncaster. We’ve both come our different routes, shall we say.”

Now McGuire and Burrow are making their Leeds swansong; one Gale is desperate to spoil. For he has a new home now, a small town where a passion for the 13-man game runs out of the hot and cold taps. “It means everything to the town,” Gale says. “They live and breathe rugby league. It’s massive for the area.”