FORMER Saints back row Paul Clough is carving out a new career for himself at Bradford Bulls, hoping his big game experience can rub off on his Odsal colleagues and help restore the club to their former glories.

Clough, at 27, still has plenty of rugby ahead of him – but he has as a good few memorable seasons to look back on and will have time to reflect and share those memories having been granted a rugby league testimonial.

And high up on the list of memories will be the day Clough, then aged 19, crossed the whitewash in the first Challenge Cup final at the new Wembley in 2007.

Saints were hot favourites to beat Mick Potter’s Catalans Dragons side, but it took an extra special James Roby try on 33 minutes to break the deadlock before going on to win 30-8.

It was a special day in the career of Haydock-born forward, who joined Saints from the prolific Blackbrook Royals finishing school.

Clough said: “It was all pressure ahead of Wembley, would I get picked? Then you want to win, do well, and not let anyone down. Then you win, score a try and it’s a dream come true which not many people get to experience that.

“In 2007 before the team was picked I was nervous. If there was a question mark over anyone ahead of that it was me because I was the youngest guy in there, if they were going to make a change it was me. Then I found out I was going to be playing at the first final at the new Wembley.

“I don’t recall that much about the game, with all that concentration on winning it passes you by and you can’t always take it in.”

Clough smiles when asked to recall his 52nd minute try.

“The try? Well it was like all of my tries…less than 10 metres out. Sean Long made a break, just got tackled, spread it out for Leon Pryce who went through but just couldn’t make it so he popped it to me and I fell over the line. We all can’t score tries like James Roby’s from that game.

“The best thing going into that game was that Dragons hammered us a few weeks earlier – we knew if we had underestimated them then they could have caused a shock.

“There was no way we were losing that game. It will never be remembered as a classic, but we got the winners’ medals and that is all that matters,” he said.

Clough signed for his hometown club after coming through the junior system and made his first senior appearance as a 17-year-old in the 2004 Boxing Day friendly against Leigh.

His full debut would later that season when new boss Daniel Anderson called him into an injury-hit squad against Hull.

Clough recalls: “I was in a biology lecture at Carmel College at the time and my dad came up and said, ‘you best get down to first team training’.

“I came off the bench and we won and it was great to be a part of it. But after that I went back into academy, and had a few games here and there.

“The stand out was 2006 when we went to Catalans with a junior team that nobody gave a cat in hell’s chance. But for Stacey Jones’ brilliance we would have won.

“It proved to a lot of people that there were a group of young players ready to kick on and make the grade.

“Daniel Anderson was a great coach who taught you lot as a player, even when you were not in first team. The club began to benefit from the blueprint he put down at the start.”

Clough became a regular – initially because injuries to Paul Sculthorpe, Jason Hooper and to a lesser extent Jon Wilkin and Mike Bennett, opened up a place as the bench backrower.

But his straightforward, no nonsense, error free style of play soon made him an established first teamer in his own right.

The success continued and Clough collected his second Wembley medal after the 2008 win over Hull.

But a run of Grand final defeats had begun to hang over the club, which then began to go through a tough transition spell with Anderson, Potter and Royce Simmons all taking teams to Old Trafford without success.

The year the team played on the road at Widnes after leaving Knowsley Road is probably the one that is most painful to recall during that five-match final spell.

“2011 was an exciting year, playing at Widnes, and we peaked at right time. But a few injuries in the Grand Final against Leeds and all of a sudden it was another loss.

“It was should’ve, could’ve type of thing. You have to live with it. They are all tough, that was especially so and I still can’t watch it back. It is something you have with rest of your life. Al that matters is we lost that game,” he said.

But that defeat does not hang like a cloud over him, and he retains a glass half full outlook.

It is something he has maintained despite finding himself surplus to requirements at the end of 2013.

“I was lucky enough to win two Challenge Cups for my home town team, so I am not bitter, it’s been an honour.

“By winning things here I have experienced things that money can’t buy. I feel privileged.

“2013 was a tough year for me personally and was in and out of side, but I kept working because that is all I know.

“I knew towards the back end of the year that the writing was on the wall and recall walking off at Headingley after losing the play-off game thinking ‘this is my last time’ and ‘I’m never going to play another game like this for Saints’.

“It’s part of rugby league and life, but you have got to look back and remember the good times. No player is immune to it. For every Keiron Cunningham or Paul Wellens that plays for one club and retires, there are thousands of players who play the odd game or who have to move on. That was my time to move on.

“I spoke to Nick Fozzard and he said once you leave Saints it’s never the same, element of truth in that, it’s a great club.

“I watch Saints now and still want them to do well and have got a lot of friends in that team,” said Clough.

Clough primary focus now is trying to help Bradford secure promotion to Super League from the middle eights, but he will also be running a series of testimonial events with events planned across St Helens.