DEPARTING coach Nathan Brown gave his final interview to the Star’s Mike Critchley – understandably he was proud of the way his team had signed off on his two years at the club.

MC: Congratulations. The achievement of winning Super League with no halves goes up there with the biggest the club has ever pulled off.

NB: Thanks. We were not the prettiest team back end of the year, but we competed really hard and the history of the club helps.

MC: If you were writing a script for yourself, this is the fairytale ending?

NB: I said to the wife that if we had said we’d be leaving having won the Grand Final then that is something we would have taken at the start of the year.

You want to win every trophy that is available, but because I’m an Aussie I see the Grand Final as bigger than the Challenge Cup. I was brought up on winning the Grand Final back home being everything.

MC: There was every feeling and emotion imaginable from the players down there but especially among those watching.

NB: Well I suppose a lot of people have been involved in the club for a long time and have put a lot into it.

The five Grand Finals that the club lost, followed by the two years when the club didn’t make it, added to the desire. And to be able to do that under these circumstances probably made it even more special.

MC: You went into the game as underdogs, but the sending off and Lance’s injury meant the dynamic of the game changed.

NB: There were two blokes who we could not afford to get hurt – James Roby and Lance Hohaia because we need experienced blokes in those positions. To lose Lance after just two minutes was a big blow. The good thing is that Wello had played there this year and a fair bit last year. On top of that Tommy has spent time at full back. At the end of the day the guys found a way to win.

Wigan probably played a better style of football and used the ball a lot and made a few more breaks than us, but we found ways to stop them and had enough in us to get two tries, which is all you need.

MC: Did the try at half time rattle you at the break?

NB: The emotion had got to us a little bit and some people had exerted a lot of energy and not in the right areas. The team as a whole had not done what it had done in the previous two games, which was retain the ball, complete well and put the ball in some spots which made it hard.

We turned the ball over and gave away some silly penalties but we were confident that we could get back in the game as long as we controlled what we can control, and channel our energy into the right areas.

The guys started the second half well and slowly ground them down. All 17 players really contributed. We did not have a person who was bad. Every person in the team had at least a solid game.

MC: You have used Luke Thompson and Greg Richards sparingly this year. Was this a deliberate strategy to make sure they were tip-top for play-offs?

NB: The game that stuck in my mind – and always thought they would play at the end as long as we did not use them too much – was Wigan away. Physically it was a tough game but what Luke and Greg did that day I was hopeful that if we did not burn them out we would get a few good games out of them at the back end of the year. And they played in spits and spurts towards the back end and then came back in a couple of great players.

MC: Vollenhoven, Murphy, Karalius, Meninga and Lyon have all jumped on the St Helens timeline over the decades, are you glad you got the chance to be part of this special club?

NB: It has been a wonderful experience winning the Grand Final and leaving on that note probably makes the six years we had over here even more worthwhile and justifies why I came to Saints two years ago.

We were going to go home and when Eamonn came to see us we decided to stay for a couple more years. We came here because we thought we could win trophies and now we have. It is a fitting way to leave – the club is in great shape, winning Grand Finals again and we can sail off happily.

And the tradition carries on.

MC: In hindsight are you glad the news of your departure broke before the final?

NB: I spoke to Keiron about it, and he is a really calm person and a good judge of situations, and he said I’d be better off just telling the boys and that they would push on from it. But then it was in the newspaper back home anyway. Maybe there is no right or wrong in those situations.

MC: No players in the England team, one player in the Dream Team – greater than the sum of their parts or massively under-rated?

NB: I thought the England selectors got it right with our squad where it is at. We are pretty young and we have blokes like Kyle Amor, Alex Walmsley, Tommy Makinson, Mark Percival, Luke Thompson and Greg Richards who have now won a Grand Final.

They will come back in next year and work hard under the new coach and then see where their game goes and then see if they are ready for England.

A lot of the Leeds kids in the England team won Grand Finals before they ventured on to England.

We don’t want players to have too much too soon and I think this is the right path for them and hopefully next year they will improve from the experience this year, backed up by training hard in the off season and next year- physically and mentally developing them.

I’d like to think next year the situation will be different for a few of those guys.