Graphic: Engage Super League Grand Final: St Helens v Leeds Rhinos

Few players are as thoughtful about the sport as Jon Wilkin, the St Helens and England forward, for whom last year’s thumping loss to Leeds Rhinos in the engage Super League Grand Final was a rude but necessary awakening. Part of a generation at Knowsley Road nurtured on triumphing on the big occasions, Wilkin vowed never to go into a final with the same blasé attitude.

“I remember looking up at the scoreboard and shaking my head,” Wilkin said. “How was that possible? We’d turn up at finals and win. Old Trafford, Cardiff, Twickenham, Wembley — we knew nothing else.

“It was reflecting afterwards that I promised myself never to go into another final with that ‘we’re turning up to win’ approach. I’m more than aware of how good Leeds are. This time I’m here to compete instead of seeing winning as the only possibility.”

A mature perspective is not the least of Wilkin’s qualities. He has emerged as an articulate spokesman in raising players’ issues, which he feels the RFL hierarchy does not take seriously enough.

Rare among sportsmen, his amusing and insightful column on the BBC Sport website is not penned by a ghost-writer. Wilkin, 24, had to interrupt a journalism degree course after his first Great Britain call-up two years ago, but he is looking at a possible media career after he retires from playing.

“We’re well paid for a short period, but it’s hardly life-changing sums of money,” he said. “We put our bodies on the line every week and should get more, I think. Beyond that, you have to ask yourself what you want from the game. What I want is to look back with pride on a time when I was part of a team that entertained and created a bit of history.”

With money pouring into the pockets of players in some other sports, he feels that rugby league must act. “Look at cricket now and the rewards available to elite players in rugby union,” he said. “I’m not saying that union is something I aspire to play, but for those people driven by the financial side of the game, it’s a very tempting prospect.

“The salary cap has served a purpose in creating more of a level playing field in the Super League, but long term that has to be driven by the ambition of the clubs themselves, not by limiting the amount they can spend, with the governing body effectively babysitting clubs. Rugby league needs to adapt and move with the times and that means listening to the players more.”

In terms of greater rewards, the players’ responsibility lies on the pitch. That, according to Wilkin, means England winning the World Cup, which starts in Australia in three weeks’ time.

“We’re not going there to be a mediocre team, happy to finish second or third,” he said. “We want to win and we’re well aware of the implications should we do that. The main reason union has surpassed league in some respects in the last five years was England winning the World Cup in 2003.

“We need a strong international game and a successful England side. Both are integral to the growth of the game in this country. Rather than pointing the finger elsewhere, the onus is on us as players to make that happen in Australia this autumn.”

Wilkin, brought to the club by Ian Millward from Hull Kingston Rovers six years ago, has thrived during Daniel Anderson’s 3½-year tenure as coach, which ends after this evening’s final with his return to his native Australia, and a culture of excellence compared by Wilkin to Manchester United. He draws parallels with the sustained brilliance over many years of Keiron Cunningham and Sean Long — the “Giggs and Scholes, if you like” — and a production line of talent akin to that at Old Trafford.

“Very few players go to Man United and fail,” Wilkin said. “That same environment, in which players can excel, exists here and has certainly been fostered by Daniel.

“It’s not that he has any amazing technical or tactical advice. His man-management skills are impeccable and set him apart. You know where you stand with him, what he wants.

“He’s instilled a set of values, in which we know what’s right and wrong, and we pride ourselves on being honest with each other. We know when to relax and when to work hard.” After last year, Wilkin also knows that winning has to be earned.