Grand farewell for host of Maitland Pickers stars

Langbridge, front-rower James Taylor, centre Gary Anderson and back-rower Reid Alchin will all play their last game in Pickers colours as Maitland chases a premiership three-peat against Central Newcastle who will be playing in their first top grade grand final for 61 years.

Taylor is set to likely sign with Northern Hawks if he remains in the Hunter, Anderson is joining Easts Tigers in the Queensland Cup and Alchin will be playing in France.

Pickers coach Matt Lantry said he hoped to send off all four players with a title on an historic day in which Maitland also take on Lakes United in the reserve grade and Oporto Women's Premiership grand finals.

The Pickers will take the same team into the grand final that defeated Central 40-12 in the major semi-final at Maitland Sportsground.

Lantry said it was great to have three teams in grand finals and irrespective of the results on Sunday, it had been one of the most successful seasons in recent times.

The Pickers are set to become only the second Maitland team to win three premierships in a row joining 1956-58 premiership sides featuring Don "Bandy" Adams.

Lantry said he didn't like to compare eras, but it was great to be even mentioned in the same conversation as that 1950s team.

"A couple of old boys have made mentioned that this side is on par with the 1950s side. The game was played quite differently back then, but I genuinely feel from a results perspective it is on par when you take into account the last five years.

"There's some amazing names in that 1950s group who played in the three premierships of 1956, 57 and 58 and to be even spoken about in that sentence when the Newcastle Rugby League was all but the pinnacle of rugby league in Australia is second to none.

"It's certainly something that is not lost on us when it is mentioned, and we are significantly respectful of those teams. We are creating our own little bit of history for the club which is important."

Lantry said that he believed Langbride, the Maitland skipper since 2020, would sit comfortably among the Pickers best and most influential players from their golden years.

"I brought him in 2020 on the back of working with him in 2019 for the first time," Lantry said of Langbridge who played with him at Wests in the 2019 premiership side.

"I knew what he could do for our club both on and off the field. His leadership skills are second to none in particular this time of year.

"He is a wholehearted player who is an inspiration to his teammates and everyone within our club and I'd love nothing more than see a person of Alex's quality go out the way he deserves and that is a premiership winner."

Langbridge said he had loved his time at the Pickers and dearly wanted to go out with what would be a fourth premiership in a row counting the 2020 President's Cup campaign.

"Publicly we'll say three, but internally I'll definitely say four," Langbridge joked this week ahead of his last game with the Pickers.

"Coming over first year I thought we would compete and be pushing the five, then the year after I thought we might be top three and then probably looking third year we should be bang on the money.

"The President's Cup was a blessing in disguise. It allowed us to bring in people and they just sort of stayed.

"It's been a pretty crazy ride."

Langbridge said the Pickers had maintained their standards with astute recruiting which paid as much attention to the person's character as their playing ability.

He said he wasn't sure if it would be his last game of league, but it would be with the Pickers as he wanted to step back and spend more time on playing touch football for which he picked to play for Australia in 2019.

Lantry said he believed the introduction of the new player points system from next year could spell the end of an era in which a team could dominate for four or five years as the Pickers had.

He said it would be incredibly difficult keeping premiership winning squads together in the future as he believed the system was designed to force clubs to shed players to less successful teams.

"It will become harder and harder for any team to sustain success over a long period under the current system," he said.

"When this group moves on over the next couple of years I would comfortably say that it will be the last time in the Newcastle Rugby League for a very long time that you will see a team dominate like we have.

"This group has been together for five years it was always going to come an end, but the exciting thing is that it offers opportunities for a new set of players.

"We've got to enjoy this period of success because long term it is going to be very hard to repeat."

Lantry said he was happy with the side's mental and physical preparation and were ready to deal with the emotion surrounding Central's return to the grand final.

"It will be an emotional day for Central and their supporters, but at the end of the day we only have to look after our own back yard we can't get caught up in that.

"We've got to be prepared to be resilient defensively as we probably won't get a lot of 50-50 calls on the basis of a big following for Charlestown in the grand stands.

"We need to knuckle down and worry about what we can control. We know if we can dig in and play to a really high standard we're confident in our ability to take our opportunities."