Smith plans to bow out on unlikely high in Final

He grew up at Everton with Wayne Rooney. Now he's capping a famous comeback for St Helens

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They don't write Boy's Own Paper stories like Matty Smith's any more.

Out of favour at St Helens for two and a half years, sent out on loan to the Celtic Crusaders and Salford, it surely beggars belief that he should be called back for the last two games at Knowsley Road and prove a major influence in steering them into the Grand Final.

Even Smith cannot quite believe it. He had actually signed a two-year contract at Salford but was still technically a St Helens player on loan when the unexpected call came. With Leon Pryce, Kyle Eastmond and Jonny Lomax all injured, Saints were running out of half-backs when their assistant coach, Kieron Purtill, suggested to coach Mick Potter that it might be possible to bring a forgotten man out of exile.

"I didn't think I'd ever play for Saints again, but when the chance came I jumped at it," Smith says. "It's what dreams are made of, to play against Wigan at Old Trafford."

He has been close to the action at the ground before. Three years ago, at the age of 20, he played in the final eliminator against Leeds but lost his place for the Grand Final when Sean Long was fit again. "I was 18th man and I got to run on with the water, but it's not the same as playing," he recalls. "It was disappointing to lose my place, but if you've got a fully fit Sean Long, you play him."

It has been nothing if not a roundabout route that has brought Smith to Old Trafford today. He was a late starter in professional rugby league, showing more promise as a footballer in his schooldays – good enough to be in the youth scheme at Everton, in the intake immediately after Wayne Rooney.

While Rooney was taking his prodigious steps into the first team, Smith, a tenacious midfielder, was getting the odd game in the reserves, but he was not retained. "I wasn't quite good enough to make it at football, so I went back to what I knew best," he says.

That meant signing for the St Helens club he had always supported. His football career had left him with the legacy of an outstanding kicking game and he was being groomed as the logical successor to Long as first-team scrum-half.

Somehow, it never quite happened. In three seasons he made just 16 appearances and, at the start of last year, he was loaned out to the Celtic Crusaders, who were desperate for players for their first year in Super League. For Smith, it was a formative experience.

"It wasn't an easy year, but I grew up a lot. I was living away from home for the first time and I was taking a lot more responsibility on the field," he says.

Smith was a Super League regular with the Bridgend-based club but, with Long departing for Hull this season, he had reason to hope that his turn might have come at Knowsley Road. Instead, he was sent out on long-term loan again, this time to Salford, another club in need of well-schooled players.

Smith grew in stature during his season at The Willows, but agreeing a permanent deal with them was his way of acknowledging that it was not going to happen for him at Saints. Then, out of the blue, came that phone call. His answer was never in doubt, but it was a bright idea which could so easily have gone horribly wrong. He had just one training session with his old team-mates before the play-off against Warrington, who had not won at Knowsley Road for 16 years but were strongly fancied to finally do so.

That they failed was largely due to Smith taking the game by the scruff of the neck and dominating the Wolves, especially with his Goodison-honed kicking skills. "It was quite easy to fit in," he says. "I still knew all the moves and all the calls and there were only a couple of new players."

He was a clear man of the match and, as Potter said, could hardly be left out against Huddersfield a fortnight later, even with Eastmond nominally fit to return. As it transpired, Eastmond was a long way from 100 per cent and Smith took control again, helping to guide Saints to victory in the last game at Know-sley Road and into the Grand Final.

Today will be a new experience in another way for Smith, as he has never even played in a Saints-Wigan derby. He admits that will add to the tension for him, but declares: "I play better when I'm nervous."

Smith would not be human if he did not want to show Saints what he can do and what they have missed by sending him out into the wilderness. But he says he has no regrets about the way things have worked out. "My future lies at Salford now," the 23-year-old says. "They're the ones who have given me the opportunity to play regular Super League."

So it is that, a couple of miles away from The Willows, Smith can give himself the most extraordinary send-off from his original club that he could have imagined. They don't write fiction like that because, if they did, no one would believe it. As for Matty Smith, he can hardly believe his good luck.