FAIRYTALE END FOR GRAHAM AFTER STUNNING FINISH TO SUPER LEAGUE GRAND FINAL

A remarkable Jack Welsby try after full-time snatched an 8-4 grand final triumph for St Helens to leave James Graham in tears as the former Bulldogs and Dragons prop bowed out as a Super League winner. With the game at Hull's KC Stadium appearing headed for extra-time, 2018 Golden Boot winner Tommy Makinson attempted a 35-metre field goal that hit the uprights as the full-time siren sounded. Welsby, 19, led the chase and dived to ground the ball just before the dead-ball line to break the hearts of Wigan coach Adrian Lam and his players and spark wild celebrations for Saints. It was Graham's first premiership triumph since 2006 with St Helens and he has played in seven grand final defeats since – including two with Canterbury in 2012 and 2017 – and he now ends his career as a winner. "I am just overwhelmed. I am genuinely moved," Graham told Sky Sports after "It's hard to put it into words. If you read about it in the papers you would think it was a cartoon. It is unbelievable. You couldn't have scripted it better, for us anyway. "I am gutted that we can't celebrate with the fans, and our friends and families, but we will have our time. It has been an honour to play for St Helens." Saint coach Kristian Woolf, the man behind Tonga's rise at international level, paid tribute to Graham after overseeing back-to-back grand finals wins for the club in his first season in the Super League. "He is an outstanding person first and foremost," Woolf said. "What he gets out of his body every single day … you see him rock into training on a Monday sometimes and you don't think there is any chance of him playing on the weekend because he can barely walk and he gets himself through. "He is very hard to keep out of a session and he just gives us absolutely everything he has got every time he takes the field.

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