WOLVES’ best win against St Helens was not played out on the rugby league field, it was the capture of Lee Briers!

When the adopted Warringtonian moves on at the end of the season – to allow for incoming head coach Daryl Powell’s own backroom team – he will have given The Wire 24½ years of incredible service.

In terms of unbroken duty in the club’s history, only Parry Gordon comes close to that in a playing-coaching capacity.

Nobody devotes time, energy and commitment like that without earning lifelong friends and admiration, meaning the former Wire captain will be sorely missed.

> How the news of Lee Briers' Warrington Wolves departure was broken

The place will seem strange without a man whose game intelligence and mercurial talents have been a beating heart of the club since the second season of Super League when newly arrived head coach Darryl Van de Velde sought a ‘general’ for his struggling team.

That shy 17-year-old half-back who carried the weight of a town’s expectation on his shoulders from the day he arrived for a £65,000 fee, has come a long way since – even barking orders at the likes of hard-man Adrian Morley on the way to three Challenge Cup Final glory days much cherished by all of a primrose and blue persuasion.

He has grown with the club. And the club, at rock bottom in the early 2000s, has grown with him.

When the multiple club record holder’s playing days were prematurely ended by injury in 2013, there was an outcry that a role must be found for a man of such knowledge who was once dubbed ‘the spiritual leader of the club’ by another Warrington legend, former head coach Paul Cullen.

Initially as coach to the Academy side and then as an assistant to the first team, he has been a part of a group that has won a League Leaders’ Shield (2016) and Challenge Cup (2019) as well as reaching four other major finals.

Thank you for all the memories so far, Briersy!

> What Lee Briers says about his impending Warrington Wolves exit

If Saints had realised the world-class talent they were letting go, they surely never would have done so.

Very few had or have the ability to read game situations like him, and have the ability to exploit them. The fact that he was not handed more Great Britain caps or a Man of Steel honour feels criminal now.

It is inconceivable to think another of Wire’s ex-head coaches, Steve Anderson, wanted to sell a player who can rightly be considered an all-time great of the game.

Cullen could see that to bring the best out of Briers, you built the team around him. And Tony Smith benefitted by doing the same.

Many said the Wire players should be aiming to send out his departing boss Steve Price on a high. The bowing out of Briersy should multiply that motivation tenfold while we also look forward excitedly to the changing of the guard in 2022.