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Ten years ago this week Josh Walters took a simple pass and plunged over the six-yard line at Old Trafford to score the final try in the Super League Grand Final as Leeds secured their seventh title. There were 73,512 fans inside the stadium and a couple of million more watching at home. He humbly plays down his role in the treble-clinching triumph. “I never say it was the winning try because Kev [Sinfield] still had to kick the two points – my try brought us level and there was still 15 minutes left.”
That was his first winning try in a Grand Final. The second came this summer in Scotland, watched by a few dozen spectators at Penicuik Rugby Club. In contrast to his supporting role at Old Trafford, Walters was West End’s driving force for the whole match. The dramatic golden-point victory brought West End Warriors their first title in their debut season, Walters breaking from halfway to seal a 34-30 win over Edinburgh Eagles. “We wouldn’t have been in that position if it hadn’t been for me,” says the gently spoken Walters. “I was about to score earlier and someone knocked the ball out of my hands. So I had to make up for that.”
Walters was part of the Leeds Rhinos side that dominated Super League for a decade under Tony Smith and then Brian McDermott. But in his five seasons in the squad he remained on the fringes. Spotted by Leeds while playing union for Carnegie Academy at Otley, Walters took up an offer to learn league in the Rhinos Under-19s. The final at Old Trafford was just his 19th game for the club.
He did not know if McDermott would pick him for the matchday squad. “We all waited upstairs at Kirkstall on the Tuesday for Mac to call us into his office one by one to be told if we were playing. He said I’d not played much – I didn’t play in the playoffs – but I’d handled myself really well and deserved an opportunity. There were fit players ahead of me but I was somebody that Mac trusted to go out and do an effective job. I was what he needed for that game.”
Walters is quick to play down his role in the victory. “I came on and the first thing I remember is Matty Bowen running through me and four other people to score for Wigan. I thought ‘Oh god.’ The next thing I’m falling over the line to score a try. I got injured in scoring and came straight off. I was getting treatment and said to the physio ‘This doesn’t feel real.’
“There was all the attention afterwards and a big night out back in Leeds. We were partying at the stadium then I met up with my housemates. It was crazy, an amazing experience. But we only had a week off because we were playing New Zealand two weeks later.”
Walters didn’t get the profile a treble-clincher usually would. The 2015 final was also the farewell match in the grand careers of Jamie Peacock, Kevin Sinfield and Kylie Leuluai. All the focus was on them. Given that his 19th Leeds appearance was a Grand Final, his 20th was against the Kiwis and his 21st was the World Club Challenge against NRL champions North Queensland Cowboys, Walters must have thought these moments would come again and again. They didn’t.
Without Sinfield, Peacock and Leueiu, Leeds fell off a cliff. Yes, there was their miraculous run to the 2017 Grand Final and a shock win over Castleford, but the long-term rot was setting in. Three years after his golden moment, Walters was shown the door. “Kev came in as head coach and it was all unravelling, a changing of the guard. Leeds are still trying to get back from that. There were a lot of great boys coming through around me, like Ash Handley and Liam Sutcliffe, and I didn’t see myself in their mould. But Brian Mac really liked me. He said I put myself in places other people won’t.
“But I never pushed beyond that at Leeds. I was making 40-50 tackles a game but a couple of years in they said: ‘You’re attack’s not good enough, you’re not bringing enough pop in your carries, not making a dent in defences. We need to make space for younger players coming through, there’s no point you being here’. I was naive. I made my Leeds debut a year and seven days after my first game of rugby league and just didn’t know enough about it. If I’d known more I’d have changed how I played.”
Walters had become a solid forward but not someone who could win Super League again for Leeds. A move to Championship contenders Featherstone worked wonders. “Ryan Carr was an amazing coach,” says Walters. “I learned so much that season. I really started to understand rugby league. But I wanted a lifestyle alongside rugby.”
Walters, who was born in Guildford, returned to Surrey when he signed for London Broncos but that ended quickly. “They were hoping to stay in Super League but we ended up in the Championship and five games in the season was cancelled.” The double whammy of relegation and the pandemic saw the Broncos fall apart. “The team I’d gone to join completely disbanded.”
As the Broncos went part-time, Walters returned to his rugby union roots. Spells at Richmond, Sale Sharks and Caldy failed to bear fruit, so he became a full-time personal trainer and played for Wharfedale with his schoolmates. “That was really nice but it was wet and cold in the Yorkshire hills. I’d been playing since I was about 10 so I decided to give my body a break. We’d got married and needed to get on the property ladder and put some things behind us. That’s been the direction of my life the last few years, rather than searching for what a career or rugby could give me.”
Walters and his wife Amna both have family in Scotland so, after living in Leeds, London and Manchester, they bought a house in Kilmacolm, a village 15 miles west of Glasgow. The move north gave him the chance to play for the new club West End Warriors.
“I was starting to miss rugby league and thought if we move back south I need to get myself ready,” he says. “I’ve really enjoyed it with Warriors. It was like getting back on the horse and I was adding value to something. The game’s not as well understood here but it’s got so much potential. I didn’t really see that when I was playing professionally. It’s constantly exciting. Being part of that brings me joy.” So much so that, four years after playing his 119th professional game, Walters is considering a return at the age of 30. “I’m still fairly young,” he says.
The passing of time has given him a new perspective on what he achieved in that final a decade ago. “We stayed in Manchester the night before and I was rooming with Joel Moon,” he says. “We were both so nervous, saying: ‘I can’t believe I’m here.’ Moonie said you’re going to score a try tomorrow but I said I probably won’t even get on. I remember the warm-up was the worst we’d ever done. Jason Davison [the team’s strength and conditioning coach] was putting his cones in the wrong places, it was so loud you couldn’t hear. It was madness. I don’t even remember much about the game until I came on.
“I ignored the Grand Final for a few years but now I can look back and be proud of it. You can want it but there are so many variables needed to get into that position. You’ve got to be lucky. I was. I stood on the shoulders of giants that season – Rob Burrow, Kev Sinfield, JP – and I’m incredibly grateful to them for that.”
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