Briscoe looking to a Hull grand finale to make up for year of hurt

Full-back ready to unload his frustration on St Helens at Old Trafford after missing out on Challenge Cup glory

Shaun Briscoe is the sort of polite, well-mannered 23-year-old who gives rugby league players a good name, as anyone who saw him taking his disabled younger brother Glyn to Wigan matches in his days at the JJB Stadium would confirm. But Hull's unsung full-back has grown thoroughly sick of being asked how he feels in the build-up to tomorrow night's Super League grand final.

It is an irresistible, if slightly insensitive, question after he spent last season's Challenge Cup final against Leeds in a Cardiff hospital after being diagnosed with appendicitis the day before the game. "It's been mentioned a few times," sighed the blond Wiganer, who still managed to make a brief appearance at Hull's post-match celebrations at the Angel Hotel against medical advice after being smuggled out of the hospital and into a taxi by his father. "It would have been nice to put it to the back of my mind and look forward to Old Trafford." That, however, has been impossible.

Reluctantly, he relates last August's events once again, and how he missed what would have been the biggest match of a career that was kick-started by rejection from his home-town club three years ago. "It was the Thursday morning, when we were setting off from Hull to Cardiff for the cup final, that I woke up and didn't feel too good. My missus said not to worry, I'd just be nervous about the rugby, but I couldn't keep anything down all day so the club put me in isolation from all the other players in our hotel. The next morning it was even worse so I went to hospital, and I had my appendix out that day."

Briscoe, who played in every round before the final, followed Hull's dramatic 25-24 win from hospital, and a few hours later heard fans celebrating outside. "The hospital was right next to one of the park-and-rides for the stadium, so I saw quite a few of our fans who told me what was going on. I don't know why, but I said I fancied going down to see the lads. I had a chat with one of the nurses who said I couldn't go. But it was only a couple of minutes away in a taxi so I managed to sneak out. I was only there about half an hour, and I probably went even whiter than I am normally. But it didn't do me any harm."

Briscoe, whose father Carl coaches Great Britain's amateur under-18 team, has long recovered from the disappointment of being released by Wigan, where he had filled in during the 2002 and 2003 seasons when his mentor Kris Radlinski was injured. He even ran the water at Old Trafford as 18th man for the 2003 grand final in which the Warriors were thrashed by Bradford, and admits: "I didn't want to leave at all. They said it was because of the salary cap, but it's turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me."

Briscoe started on the wing when Hull lost to St Helens two weeks ago, with the New Zealander Motu Tony at full-back, and Hull's coach Peter Sharp is likely to mix and match again. In either position, Briscoe knows he will be in the firing line for Sean Long's kicking, crucial to St Helens this year. "It's hero or villain time, isn't it? If somebody comes through and you tackle them one on one you're a hero, but if you drop a high ball you're a villain.

"Me and Motu both prefer the full-back spot, but we're happy to adapt to the wing. When it comes to an Old Trafford grand final, you'll play anywhere. Over the last eight years there's only four teams - Saints, Wigan, Bradford and Leeds - who have ever made it. That's a career, isn't it? So it shows that this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we've got in front of us now."

"Fingers crossed - I'm not on the pitch yet," he added. For Briscoe, tomorrow's kick-off cannot come quickly enough.