Given the sheer multitude of stories attached to Wigan’s Grand Final victory against Warrington on Saturday night, it was not hard to find an anecdote which captivated one’s attention. But with all the focus on the fairytale finale for Shaun Wane, Sam Tomkins and the rest of Wigan’s departing heroes, Dom Manfredi’s story is the most heartwarming of them all.
Two years ago, as the Warriors were celebrating their last Grand Final success, one of their most talented young players was facing up to the very real prospect of a life away from rugby league. Manfredi’s 2016 campaign was a strange one: his early-season performances produced a place in the Super League Dream Team and talk of an England call-up before a serious knee injury left him a frustrated spectator as Wigan lifted the Super League trophy aloft at Old Trafford.
In his comeback game for the reserves last year he suffered a recurrence of the same injury and at one stage it was likely Manfredi would never play again.
“It’s akin to climbing Everest, what he’s achieved in the last two years,” said Wigan’s head of performance, Mark Bitcon, after Manfredi scored twice in the 12-4 win against Warrington in only his sixth game back from two years of woe.
“If that knee would have ruptured again, we’d have had a serious discussion about contracts and whether Dom wanted to carry on,” Bitcon said. “As recently as a month ago we weren’t sure he’d play again and now he’s scoring the winning try in a Grand Final. It’s an unbelievable story.”
Bitcon is right and it was a journey not lost on Wane after the match. “I’m hoping he’s the big story here,” Wane said of the 25-year-old. “I have a place in my heart for him.”
The feeling, it seems, is mutual. “I’d probably be digging holes on a building site if it wasn’t for Waney,” was Manfredi’s emotional response on Saturday evening when asked to sum up the impact his coach has played in this remarkable road to recovery.
“If you’d told me this would be happening six months ago, I’d have told you to shut up,” he said with a smile and admitted that in those hapless times, as he faced up to a second knee reconstruction in 12 months, he was well aware his rugby playing career might well have been over before it had truly begun.
“I started doing some HGV driving and I was planning on doing my test,” he said. “I had some dark times during those two years and I sat down and said to myself that this was my last chance. If it’s not good enough, it’s not good enough. At least I’ve tried. I’m really made up – everyone at the club has kept me going and got me there in the end.”
Even the Grand Final did not go completely to plan for Manfredi, who was temporarily withdrawn because of a cut above the eye. “It was my eyelid that was cut, so the blood was going straight into my eyeball,” he said. “I couldn’t really see anything, so that needed stitching up. The doctor nailed that within five minutes, so I was back out there and ready to go. There was no doubting I’d get back out there” – and now, with the benefit of hindsight, no doubting he would score the match-winning try.
It is that attitude which drove Manfredi towards his happy ending after two years of adversity. As the player returned to the Old Trafford medical room to have his stitches reapplied after the win, Bitcon said: “I’ve seen players in my time decide it’s not worth the pain, to go again. But Dom’s dedication – I’ve never seen anything like it in my 20 years in sport.”
