Jon Wilkin - Collector Of Medals And Some Time Lightning Rod

I was going to start this by stating that Jon Wilkin polarises opinion among Saints fans. But he doesn’t really. Not over the last three or four years of his 16-year spell with the club which he announced yesterday will come to an end at the end of the current season.

His three seasons as captain from 2015-2017 were particularly notable for the fact that the former Hull KR man seemed to cop the blame from the supporters for everything that went wrong. And plenty did under the stewardship of Wilkin’s former team-mate Keiron Cunningham as Wilkin’s attempts to play in the halves became a lightning rod for the fans ire. Yet here was a player making a sacrifice for the good of the team. He has found it a bit difficult at times since to get out of the habit of playmaking which has drawn more criticism but Wilkin has never given anything less than his all for Saints. He was somewhat controversially replaced as skipper by James Roby when Justin Holbrook took over from Cunningham. Some would see that as a demotion and a personal slight, but Wilkin seemed to accept with good grace, perhaps relieved that he would no longer be berated by the fans for failing to deliver the mother of all rollickings every time Saints conceded a try. It just wasn’t his style. It's not Roby’s either but the very, very best are judged by different standards. Wilkin is and has been fallible, prone to the odd stinker which is scrutinised and magnified until in the eyes of some he becomes just about good enough to play NCL.

Whatever your thoughts on Wilkin as a halfback and club captain it should be remembered that he wasn’t too shabby as a back rower. Many fans’ view of Wilkin is tainted by the fact that as a loose forward he is not comparable to the great Paul Sculthorpe. When fit, Sculthorpe was among the very best players of the Super League era, achieving a Roby-esque God-like status at the club. Like most mortals Wilkin was never on that level but he was good enough to make 10 appearances for England between 2004-2011, and six for Great Britain between 2006-2007. Good enough too to make the 2006 Super League Dream Team, a year when Saints swept everything before them including the BBC’s Sports Personality Of The Year Team Of The Year award.

Wilkin played in the second row in the Grand Final victory over Hull FC that year and although injury kept him out of the 2014 Grand Final triumph over Wigan he did manage to be part of four successful Challenge Cup Final sides. He came off the bench in the 2004 victory over Wigan in Cardiff and started all three of Saints consecutive cup final wins in 2006, 2007 and 2008 against Huddersfield Giants, Catalans Dragons and Hull FC respectively. He scored two tries in the first of those against the Giants at Twickenham, that despite a quite gruesome facial injury which saw his broken nose basically strapped to his face with bandages. The sort of injury that would require gas, air and two months off in certain other sports. It epitomised his courage and it wasn’t just domestically that Wilkin collected honours. He was also part of the side that beat Brisbane Broncos 18-14 in 2007 to win the World Club Challenge.

In all Wilkin has made close to 400 appearances in the red vee, a milestone that injury permitting he will reach when Saints take on Wigan in the Super 8s clash on August 31. Last week’s devastating semi-final loss to Catalans Dragons has denied Wilkin another Wembley appearance in his final year but he will leave the club if not as one of the all-time greats up there with Sculthorpe, Roby and Cunningham et al, then certainly one of the most decorated players in the clubs history. A Phil Neal of the rugby league world. Consistently excellent over a long period of time but nobody’s idea of Kenny Dalglish.

Most have observed that now is perhaps the right time for Wilkin to depart. He has been operating at loose forward and at second row at times this year and while he never seems to fail to rack up an enormous amount of tackles in defence, his declining skills maybe no longer match his tireless work rate. Yet with James Bentley and Joe Bachelor having not yet been introduced to first team action it is perhaps a slight surprise that Wilkin won’t be kept around a while longer to help smooth their transition into the side. Wilkin has largely shared playing time with Morgan Knowles this year and though the latter is still prone to bouts of indiscipline there seems little doubt that he has benefitted from having Wilkin around to help guide him.

Yet with other interests including his media work and his business venture it may be that Wilkin is not tempted to go around again in what is an increasingly unforgiving environment. At 34 the muscles and bones must take that little bit longer to recover from game to game and let’s be frank, putting your body on the line only to be met with a chorus of disapproval from large sections of the fan base is a pretty unappealing proposition. Wilkin has given everything for the cause since he walked through the door from Hull KR in 2002 as a fresh-faced 20-year-old and should leave with all our best wishes for whatever he goes on to do.

Muscles and bones permitting we may see Wilkin on a rugby league field again. He has been constantly linked with a return to Rovers, the club he supported as a boy and with whom he started his career, while there have also been whispers that Toronto Wolfpack might be interested especially if they can get through the Qualifiers and make the leap into Super League for 2019. His experience would be invaluable to either of those clubs or to anyone else interested in getting him on board. Or will he settle for the comfort of the television studio, where he has been working as a pundit on the BBC’s Challenge Cup coverage for a number of years? That role provided another stick with which he was beaten by a certain section of the fan base who offered the somewhat confused argument that turning up to talk about a game not involving Saints with Mark Chapman somehow translated to a lack of commitment to the Saints cause. Similarly, his foray into the world of coffee shops was the butt of many a lame joke whenever his standards fell below that which was expected from the fans, and cited by his fiercest critics as a reason why they were not seeing the second coming of Sculthorpe.

None of which is particularly fair. Perhaps if Wilkin had come through as a youngster in the present era he would be appreciated more. He emerged a time when the first team was jam-packed full of superstars, three or four of whom including Sculthorpe and Cunningham are now widely regarded as all-time greats of the club. There was also Sean Long, Jamie Lyon, Paul Wellens, Darren Albert, Leon Pryce and now Roby. It's quite a list. It was an unusual, slightly giddy time to be a Saints fan the legacy of which is that every Saints team since has been compared to the legendary sides of the first decade of Super League. Only now that he has announced his departure is the realisation hitting home for many that Wilkin was a fantastic player in his own right and a wonderful servant to the club over 16 trophy-laden years. I thank him and wish him all the best for the future.