Scene set for all-Leeds rugby league promotion derby as Wakefield Trinity host 'mega day'

The winners will be promoted and the derby showdown looks too close to call though the league table favours Easts who finished fourth on the table, two places and a couple of points ahead of Oulton.

They thrashed fifth-placed Egremont Rangers in the opening round of play-offs before a superb 34-20 victory at Kells, who were second, last week. “It was a huge result,” Ryan Woofitt, Easts’ joint coach alongside Lee Cosgrove, said of that success.

“I think it was the first time East Leeds have ever gone up there and won. They were unbeaten at home in well over a year, so it was a very good win.

“We had to bring a couple of young lads in and they absolutely did the business. We did our homework on Kells as well; we knew, with how their pitch is, it was important to play uphill in the first half, which we did, then the second half looked after itself.”

Each finalist has got the better of the other this term and with so little between them on the table, the decider could go to the wire. Woofitt recalled: “In the first game of the season Oulton came and did a number on us. We had a belting season last year, we were on a 30-game winning streak and they came and did a job on us at our place.

“We won there, so it’s fitting. It is one-all this year and it literally is winner takes all. There was one point in it at our place and 12 when we went there. I’d not expect it to be anything like 12 points in the final, it is going to be nip and tuck - the bounce of the ball, a couple of wrong decisions by players, that’s what it’s going to come down to. It is whoever turns up best on the day - no one is going to give an inch.”

Easts will complete successive promotions if they win. Raiders were only granted a place in Division One after Ince Rose Bridge withdrew, but Woofitt is hugely impressed by their form in the two play-off rounds so far.

He said: “Looking at the league table it was set up for [champions] Dewsbury Celtic and Kells to have a big finale, but it hasn’t worked out that way. That’s a compliment to what Oulton have done.

“We had a good result going up to Kells, but Oulton winning at [third-placed] Dewsbury Moor and Dewsbury Celtic, that’s a very tough route to go. It’s credit to them. We are very aware they have turned the corner and they are going to be all guns blazing for this local derby in the final.”

With Hunslet ARLFC playing West Hull in the Premier Division decider at 3pm, it is a huge occasion for the community game in Leeds. “There’s a couple of miles between all of us, we are all on each other’s doorstep,” Woofitt noted.

“We are playing at the home of the Super League champions and having it there, you couldn’t write it. It is going to be a mega day.”