Leeds Rhinos veteran drew strength from the loss of his father and is ready to put his body on the line for one last Challenge Cup final against Hull KR at Wembley

“My body’s wrecked, mate,” Jamie Peacock says with a chuckle as he accepts all he has to endure while playing outstanding rugby league for Leeds Rhinos at the age of 37. Peacock, the former Great Britain captain who will retire after 20 years as a professional at the end of the season, plays his last Challenge Cup final on Saturday. It could be the first trophy he lifts in a potential treble Leeds are chasing in his farewell campaign. Yet, before then, Peacock strips bare the truth of being a battered old pro in a brutal sport.

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“You see the good side of me when I play,” he says. “The other five days out of seven you don’t see me shuffling round the house, in a bad mood, because I’m in pain. The team run is on a Thursday and normally that’s the day I wake up and feel all right. I can train 100% again. Then it’s Friday and I’m good to play. But then we get back on that five-day cycle where I’m grumpy around the house and shuffling about, just trying to get through the pain.”

The powerful prop is determined that, over the next six weeks, he will add to his roll of honours, which includes eight Super League titles and three Challenge Cup victories. “We’re getting to the real back end of my career now and there’s such motivation to go out on a high. I put up a sign at home asking: ‘How do you want to be remembered?’ But that’s not particularly by people who watch the game. It’s the people I play against. What’s going to be their last impression of me? Me playing as well as I can, or just a bloke fading out? I want it to be the first.”

Peacock, like many of the hardest men in league, is a modest person. And so it is striking when he admits to a particular source of pride. “I’m most pleased about the way I’ve played the last few years. A lot of players get past 33 and don’t produce. But I’ve improved as I’ve got older. You’re competing with yourself and that’s why you always have that fire in the belly.”

There is another more poignant reason for Peacock’s desire to push himself. He talks about the loss of his father, Darryl, in moving detail. “I discovered my dad was ill on 24 November 2011,” Peacock remembers. “I got a phone call telling me he had lung cancer. He had three months to live. But my dad actually lived until 6 September 2013. That showed me there are no limits if you put your mind to it. I decided I wouldn’t be limited by people’s perceptions of what a 37 year old should play like.

“My dad gave me that. I always wanted to play as well as I could for him – and when you play for a cause above and beyond you do really well. The final thing I got from him came in the week he passed away. He was in the hospice and you get the death rattle when you’ve got lung cancer. So I knew we were near the very end.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I always wanted to play as well as I could for my dad.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

“His last lucid moment was on the Monday and he slipped away into a coma. We were playing Wigan on the Thursday and I’d been there all week. That Thursday [afternoon] I thought: ‘Should I go and play?’ Sportsmen usually need many frameworks in place before they play. I thought ‘Balls to it. He would want me to play.’ I called Brian McDermott [Leeds’ head coach] to say I would play. I drove to Wigan and had to stop on the way because I thought I was going to be sick. But I played my best game of the year – by some distance [Leeds won 20-6].

“I realised you can play well regardless of what’s happened. It’s great you eat the right stuff and have ice baths and the rest but it can lead to a weak mentality. That Wigan game showed me what I could do. I had been in a hospice all week, not slept properly, my dad’s on his death bed, I was not eating well, I felt sick – but even if my body is creaking the mind can override that and I can play as well as ever. That’s how my dad has been with me beyond the grave.”

Did he think about his dad while playing so fiercely against Wigan? “I was certainly thinking of him as I ran out. I thought, ‘I can’t come here and play crap!’ My old man had fought cancer and withstood lots of pain to stay alive so much longer than expected. Why would I be worried about a bit of contact?

“I had a hollow feeling after the game – because that’s how you feel when people near you are so ill. But, looking back, it feels like an achievement. I also managed to see my dad before he passed away. I got back to the hospice at one in the morning and slept on the floor. He died about eight o’clock the following night.”

The Challenge Cup always meant a lot to Peacock and his dad. “It was a massive thing for me as a kid. My dad always organised trips with Stanningley rugby club and we’d go down to Wembley regardless of who was playing. He would be on the bus with the parents at the front drinking beer. We’d be at the back pratting about. I must have been to eight or nine Challenge Cup finals. As a kid, there was never a Grand Final. The Challenge Cup was the blue riband event for rugby league.”

Leeds had not won the Challenge Cup since 1999 when Peacock finally helped them to a belated victory last year against Castleford. “It was intense the whole week of that game,” Peacock says, “because Leeds hadn’t won it for 15 years. We were saying it didn’t matter but inside it did. You could feel the pressure and weight of expectation. I enjoyed it more than most because it was my third time of winning it [Peacock helped his former club Bradford defeat Leeds in 2000 and 2003]. So I loved the victory lap, that night and the next day. For some of the other guys it was blunted a bit because they felt relief more than enjoyment.”

It is ironic that, this weekend, he will captain Leeds against Hull Kingston Rovers – the club for whom he will work next season. Peacock, who is closing in on his Masters degree in sports business, is drawn more to administration than the traditional route of coaching for an ex-player. But, on Saturday, he will be as fiercely competitive as ever.

“I know it’s a story line but for me there is no sentiment. It’s business. I have spoken to the key people at Hull and said: ‘I’m delighted you’re in the final but that’s as far as it goes.’ I don’t think they’d expect anything else from me. But I am delighted for the people at Hull because I know how much hard work they put in. They’re on the rise …’

His title at Hull KR is likely to be rugby manager or rugby director. “It’s a job where I will wear a suit rather than a tracksuit. I’m quite an academic person. I’ve completed all my Masters requirements bar the 15,000 word dissertation. That’s coming. So my job at Hull will be to do with the strategy and ethos of the club. What’s the framework for success? These days, especially in the Olympics and cycling, people don’t win by luck or just talent. It’s a series of processes and I want to bring everything I’ve learnt over the last 20 years to Hull.

“I was drawn by the passion of Hull’s fans. It’s their life. Hull is a tough town and to bring success to people who haven’t had it for a long time would mean more to me than anything else I’ve done in the game. I think it’s 30 years since they were at Wembley. So I’ve told them I want them to go from being a club that makes up the numbers to one challenging consistently for honours.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jamie Peacock, up against Wigan’s Liam Farrell. ‘The physicality has a lot to do with it.’ Photograph: Magi Haroun/Rex Shutterstock

Peacock admits to a few underlying doubts in a way that suggests he will conquer them once he begins his new career. “I am nervous. It’s a massive challenge. I have been playing rugby for 20 years and I know what works for me. I am used to being methodical and thinking: ‘If I do this then I will play well.’ This is different. I have a very good idea what will work. But putting it into practice? I’ve not done that. So sometimes I lie awake thinking about it. But you’ve got to have unbelievable faith in what you do. I could have stayed at Leeds and coached but it wouldn’t have been my passion. I will be really passionate about my work at Hull.”

Stuart Lancaster, England’s rugby union coach, was one of those with whom Peacock discussed his new job. “I’m a big believer in what Stuart has done. He has promoted character and values above all else and you can see how the image of English rugby union has completely changed. He is living proof that the theory works.”

Lancaster believes in Peacock’s character because, on three separate occasions, he has asked the rugby league giant to talk to his England union squad. “The one that stands out is 2012 when I was invited to talk to them before they played South Africa,” Peacock says. “It was unbelievable to be invited into that inner area, coming from league, and to speak about physicality and hand the shirts out before the game. The best ideas come from that kind of cross-pollination.”

Peacock has little doubt Sam Burgess will make a positive impact, even as a raw recruit to union, in the World Cup. “When I was at Bradford I first saw Sam at the club as a 14 year-old. The kid walked in with an aura,” Peacock says. “What he did in that Grand Final was unreal [when, last October, Burgess shrugged off a broken cheekbone to inspire the South Sydney Rabbitohs to victory in the NRL decider]. People question his ability in union but he brings qualities that are not tangible. How can you measure courage and leadership? You can’t quantify it in metres and carries and offloads. If you’ve got someone with Sam’s presence in your team it lifts everyone.”

Rugby league has a knack of producing men with such an aura – but few can match Peacock. “The physicality has a lot to do with it. You get questioned so many times and if you show a chink everyone is in there. So you have to deliver all the time if you want to be respected as one of the top men in league.”

Peacock smiles and then winces. “It’s just best if you don’t see me shuffling round the house five days of the week. But life is about living. It’s about challenges and I’ve got a few great ones left with Leeds – and then an even more massively challenging job in a suit at Hull.”