ONE-club man Keiron Cunningham has the unique distinction of being involved in every one of Saints’ successes since 1996.

 

Cunningham was rated by former Saints coach Daniel Anderson as one of the best decision makers he had coached and apart from the kicking game, Cunningham had the complete bag of tools in his locker.

Like a human wrecking ball, Cunningham’s raw power from dummy half was often too much for defenders to hold close to the line. How many times did Cunningham blast low and hard through the despairing defence to burrow through for the four-pointer.

And in the early part of his career Cunningham, as the try from half way in the 1997 Challenge Cup semi-final against Salford showed, had speed to go with that after he had ripped through the first despairing tackle.

On the other side of the ball Cunningham could get off his line to spearhead some punishing Saints defence.

The Thatto Heath-born hooker broke into the side in 1994, making his debut as a 17-year-old and two years later he was running around Wembley with the first of what would become seven Challenge Cup winners medals.

Cunningham was one of the new breed of players who had emerged into a Saints team that had been slowly developing into a force after living in Wigan’s shadow for a decade.

And he soon caught the eye, with a try in the Regal Trophy final defeat by Wigan in a game that showed Saints were ready to make a challenge.

And that they did, with Cunningham scoring one of the tries from Bobbie Goulding’s bombs which rescued the 1996 Ultimate Comeback final.

Saints went on to win the double that year, taking out the inaugural Super League trophy with teenager Cunningham grabbing a hat-trick against Halifax.

Further cup successes followed in 1997, 2001, 2004 and three years consecutive years between 2006-08.

Cunningham also added four more Super League titles as a player, being part of the coaching staff that won another Grand Final in 2014.

Arguably the best of those finals was the 2002 one against Bradford settled with a Sean Long, with Cunningham supplying the spot-on delivery for the half to calmly slot.

A month later, while on Great Britain duty, Cunningham suffered an horrendous career-threatening elbow injury.

But back he came, and particularly under Anderson and working in tandem with James Roby, Cunningham was reborn and was the beating heart of the Grand Slam winning side of 2006.

Cunningham skippered the team to the first two wins at the new Wembley and then very nearly wrote the perfect script for his playing retirement and the departure from Knowsley Road – only for that plan to be scuppered by Wigan in the 2010 final.