Powergen Challenge Cup final: Cooke ends Hull's long wait for glory

"Paul is a really gifted player and a big game player," said his coach, John Kear, who rated this win as an even more joyous occasion than his surprise triumph with Sheffield Eagles seven years ago. "You sense that if a big play is required, he is the guy who can do it. You just sense that you have got a player who can open defences up."

Cooke, whose form had been instrumental in taking Hull to the final, had had one of his quieter games, but he took control when he needed to. "I put the call on and I got the ball from Richard Horne and saw that Danny Ward was in front of me," he said. "I thought that he might be struggling so I just sliced through.''

Cooke's try would be the match-winner only provided that Danny Brough kicked his fourth conversion. Two of the previous ones had been from the touchline and Brough, preferred to Cooke as goal-kicker just a year after playing in National League Two with York, had kicked them unerringly. This one was straight in front, but that can create pressures of a different kind.

"I just thought about the one that Don Fox missed in 1968, so I just took five steps and got it over with," said Brough, who broke down in tears in mid-interview afterwards - a sign of the emotional exhaustion that had set in after such an intense match.

Part of that emotion within the whole team was generated by the misfortune that befell Shaun Briscoe when the young full-back was struck down by appendicitis the day before the match and kept in hospital. Kear described the victory as a tribute to Briscoe and said that he would be calling in at the hospital to give him the winner's medal to which he was entitled despite missing the final.

Cooke, typically, had already been on the phone to him half an hour after the game. "I spoke to him and although he was gutted to have missed the match, he is so chuffed for the lads,'' he said. "I have told him that we have plenty more chances.''

Kear took a major gamble by moving Nathan Blacklock, whose last notable game at full-back was the 1999 Australian Grand Final, from the wing to replace Briscoe. It was a gamble that was vindicated, unlike the decision of the Leeds coach, Tony Smith, to play Keith Senior despite his ankle injury. Senior bowed out of the game at half-time but Smith admitted to no regrets. "If it had just been for seven minutes I would have done it for a player of Keith's stature and quality,'' he said.

Smith also made the unsentimental decision to leave out Barrie McDermott, the talismanic Leeds forward in his last season, but the early signs, after a husband and wife, Gary and Kath Hetherington, had led out the two teams was that it might be Gary's Rhinos who had got it right.

They took the lead after 11 minutes, with the first penalty try in a final for over 30 years, when Gareth Raynor held back Mark Calderwood after Blacklock and Raynor had collided under a kick.

Hull equalised when McMenemy kicked across field, Richard Whiting knocked the ball back and Motu Tony chipped over Marcus Bai, regathered and scored. They took the lead for the first time early in the second half, when Tony intercepted from Richard Mathers and Raynor eventually scored from Blacklock's tumbling pass.

The scores were level again when Ward used his strength to ground the ball despite a two-man tackle, but then Hull appeared to be taking control. This was in danger of turning into the Marcus Bai final when the Papua New Guinea winger made an inexplicable decision to pass the ball behind his tryline and presented Whiting with a try.

Brough's third conversion plus a drop goal put Hull seven points in front, but Leeds roared back at them with Calderwood finding a gap between Blacklock and Tony and Bai redeeming himself by outjumping Tony to a high kick to put Leeds in front.

Then came Cooke's try and Brough's conversion. But the drama was not over. With 30 seconds to go, Hull's inspirational captain, Richard Swain, charged down a drop goal attempt from the Leeds captain and Lance Todd Trophy winner as man of the match, Kevin Sinfield.

If that had succeeded it would have taken this extraordinary game to a replay, but it is doubtful whether anybody's nerves could have coped with that.

Hull: Blacklock; Tony, Yeaman, Whiting, Raynor; Horne, Brough; Dowes, Swain, Carvell, McMenemy, Kearney, Cooke. Substitutes used: King, Thackray, Saxton, Chester.

Leeds: Mathers; Calderwood, Walker, Senior, Bai; Sinfield, Burrow; Bailey, Diskin, Ward, Lauitiiti, McKenna, Ellis. Substitutes used: McGuire, Dunemann, Poching, Jones-Buchanan.

Referee: S Ganson (St Helens).