'I'm made up for him': Leeds Rhinos' James Bentley talks Knowles' appeal and Grand Final memories

Bentley played for Saints when they beat Wigan in the 2020 Betfred Super League title match, which was played behind closed doors at Hull, but is from Leeds and was a childhood Rhinos fan.

Looking back on his first Grand Final and ahead to Saturday’s Old Trafford showpiece, Bentley said: “It was a bit of a weird one, playing with no crowd, but it was still special.

“The feeling, you can’t describe how good it was when you win and obviously it’ll be even better when there’s a crowd there, full of Leeds fans.

“I remember coming to the Grand Final as a kid, watching Sinny [Kevin Sinfield] lift it. I came to two or three, I remember one year we had a limo, a few of us came from the street and I remember having my face painted blue and amber.

“There’s good memories back then and I can’t wait. I am buzzing to just get out there, get playing, get my job done and get that win, which is the main thing for us.”

Injury kept Bentley out of last year’s decider, when Saints beat Catalans Dragons, but he said: “If anyone had asked me at the beginning of the year who I’d like to play against in a Grand Final it would have been Saints.

“You always want to play against your old team, old mates. I am looking forward to getting out there and getting into it with them.”

Bentley revealed there has already been some banter between him and Saints’ Morgan Knowles and Matty Lees.”

Knowles was cleared to play after a successful second appeal against a two-match ban which would have ruled him out of the final.

His presence will make Leeds’ job - and Bentley’s, as a rival forward - more difficult, but the Rhinos second-lower stressed: “He is a good mate of mine and I’d have been gutted for him if he didn’t play. I am made up for him that he gets the opportunity to go out there and play on the big stage.

“At the end of the day, you want to play and test yourself against the best, so I am looking forward to getting stuck into it.”

Saints are the only team Rhinos haven’t beaten this year. The league leaders won 26-0 at Headingley in April and 42-12 on their own turf two months later, but Bentley vowed: “We have grown a lot as a team since then. It is finals footy so anything can happen and things can change in a big game.”

While Saints were able to rest players towards the end of the league campaign and had a bye in the first week of the play-offs, Rhinos’ last three matches have all been sudden death.

They produced a huge effort to win at Catalans Dragons and Wigan Warriors, but Bentley reckons there is more left in the tank.

“That’s all behind us now,” he said of the past few games. “It is the Grand Final and if you can’t get up for that, I think there’s something wrong. You find a way to do something in games like this.

“We are confident in all the boys, we’ll all have each other’s back and do our best and that’s all you can ask for.

“We’ve been on a pretty good journey this year, from how we started to now. We have been chalking them off, building decent form and finding ways to win games, which is the main thing.”

Though Leeds were second from bottom in the table three months into the campaign, Bentley insisted: “I knew we had a really talented bunch of lads and once we did get playing well we would be a team to be reckoned with.

“Confidence is a massive thing and once we got that we went on a nice journey and it has snowballed from there.”

After a red card, two yellows and nine games out through suspension, Bentley has been an influential - and well-disciplined - figure in Rhinos’ pack over the second half of the campaign.

“Rohan [Smith, Rhinos’ coach] had me in, I said I’d been getting frustrated and he said to just focus on my game, do the little things and try not to do too much,” he recalled.

“It has worked, I have sorted my head out, I am enjoying my rugby, which is the main thing and when I am enjoying it and happy I am normally playing well.”