In sport, there are certain people who, when they talk, you can do nothing but listen. Kevin Sinfield fits that bill to perfection, and despite his rugby league career finishing more than two months ago, the former Leeds Rhinos captain is still a true thoroughbred of the sport.
Sinfield is now a rugby union player with Yorkshire Carnegie, but his efforts in captaining Leeds Rhinos to the treble in 2015 have been honoured one last time with a nomination to the shortlist for Sports Personality of the Year, which will be awarded in Belfast on Sunday evening.
Rugby league has never even had a nominee on the shortlist in the 61-year history of the event, but such is the lure Sinfield carries, if personality was the true judge of who wins the award, there are few who would deserve it more than the enigmatic 35-year-old.
The opportunity to sit down with Sinfield in the week of the event proved that even though he is no longer a rugby league player, the sport is still close to his heart – reflected by almost the first words he utters. “I’m just honoured to be representing rugby league,” he says. “It’s given me everything in my life and my career to date and this makes it all worthwhile.”
Sinfield has established a career-long reputation for deflecting attention away from himself. “The important thing to remember, whether it was me or anyone else, was to get someone on that shortlist and be up there representing the sport. Instead of having our usual few seconds of airtime on the night, we’ll be fighting with all those other sports. It’s great rugby league has some recognition at last, and we’ll have a good few minutes on the show on Sunday in front of millions of viewers. It’s key for our game; it’s an international audience that’ll be tuning in and it’s a massive opportunity.
“I represent this team and this sport on Sunday and I’m fully aware of that; it might be an individual award but it’s something that means a lot to the whole group at Leeds. It’s been a record year for the sport and that’s played a part; we’re getting more column inches, attracting better sponsors and that’s what everyone wants.”
The 13-year-old teenager who signed for Leeds and, with the help of his father initially, commuted from his home in Oldham to West Yorkshire for the subsequent 22 years, has matured into one of the game’s greatest players and finest captains. The records he holds speak for themselves, but there are also an alluring number of qualities which make up both Sinfield the sportsman and Sinfield the man, all of which have united the sport as one – with Twitter hashtags such as “#Kev4SPOTY” – to drive forward a bid to help him win on Sunday.
That game-wide support has left Sinfield humbled. “The support I’ve had within Leeds has been incredible but further afield from the whole of rugby league, that’s been astonishing,” he says.
“I’m not on any social media networks but the people you meet in the street, fans of all different clubs coming up to you, it’s been really nice. I just can’t thank people enough for the support they’ve given me. It’s incredible to be on a list with so many world-class players and athletes.”
The award will not get Sinfield’s full attention until, ever the professional, he hops on a flight to Belfast after playing for Carnegie at London Scottish on Saturday. But once that is out of the way, Sunday will give Sinfield one last chance to reflect on what he picks out as one of the standout periods of his career: his final few weeks in rugby league which resulted in a domestic treble of the Challenge Cup, League Leaders’ Shield and Grand Final.
“The whole team are coming across, and to spend one more night with those lads celebrating what we did this year is something that means a lot to me,” Sinfield says. “I’ve been four times before, and it’s like a who’s who of sport. You’re starstruck with the people who are there, and your heroes growing up are all there; I went a few years ago and I bumped into Frank Bruno and I was thinking: ‘I used to watch you when I was nine years old.’”
He may well be starstruck when he arrives on Sunday, but whether he likes it or not, there will be plenty who will be watching out for him. There would be no finer winner for rugby league than the man Leeds have dubbed “Sir Kev”.
