AFTER THE PARTY WITH MAUNY!

Now the dust has started to settle on Sunday's fantastic achievement, we caught up with Bulldogs centre Danny Maun on Tuesday afternoon to see what he has made of a quite crazy last few days!

Danny, thanks for catching up with us today! Have you come back down to earth yet?

DM: I think it's still sinking in a bit! I just sat and watched the game again this morning on TV and I'm actually now starting to think "yeah, it's really real and we won!"

How's the injury?  It looked like you were in quite a bad way by the end of the game on Sunday?

DM: I actually did the damage with the first carry of the game - it's a bit of nerve stuff around the neck area, but I managed to get through to half-time and there was no way I wanted to come off the park in a game like that one, so I managed to keep going for quite a while but it was just getting a bit too much towards the end of the match and I had to come off.  We'll see if it's OK for Sunday.

What did Sunday mean to you as a local lad?

DM: It was the best feeling ever - you don't get to play many finals in your career.  I was quite emotional after we'd won at Leigh and you start to think 'What if?' when you're in a final, but we just put everything into it and if paid off.  It was special for me as a Batley lad, but it was special for all the lads and for Karl too.  He was telling us before the game he only ever played in two finals, so we all really needed to make the most of it.  It was absolute magic.

When Widnes went 24-15 up, did you think the game had gone away from you?

DM: No, I don't think we thought it was over.  We are always in with a chance of scoring.  I think the worst thing was seeing the big clock ticking away in the corner on the big screen and you see like seven minutes to go and you still need a try.  But once Browny scored his first, I think we started to believe and when he got the one at the end it was unbelievable.  When it went to the video ref you start to think about our usual luck but he got it down brilliantly.  I was sat with Browny yesterday and he just said it was the most important try in the most important game of his career.  Both him and Josh Griffin have just got better and better all season, but we all really felt for Josh that he wasn't allowed to play on Sunday.  Perhaps the dual-registration rules need sorting out.

How did you feel at the final hooter?

DM: No-one could really believe it, I think.  The celebrations seem to go so quickly, but seeing Kev Nicholas' face was great, and you just start looking for faces in the crowd and we wanted to go and celebrate with the fans.  It was brilliant.  I've wanted this for so long - I remember the disappointment at Leigh in 2002 and Sunday more than made up for it and it was great to see so many Batley folk there - hopefully they'll continue to turn up back at the Mount.  One thing we proved you can't buy on Sunday is team spirit.

How was the Frontier?  Did you feel like rock stars on stage?!!

DM: It was crazy - we were ushered round the back and onto stage and the atmosphere was brilliant!  We managed to do our team song too!  The Frontier looked after us really well - the boys stayed out pretty late on Sunday and then quite a few were out yesterday too (it wouldn't surprise me if some are still out today!)

Finally, are the lads back down to earth and ready for Dewsbury on Sunday?

DM: I did an interview with Game On magazine yesterday and we were talking about our aspirations to be in the top six.  We will be focused Sunday.  Dewsbury may see us as an easy target as we come down from the final and they've been playing really well lately, but Karl won't be letting us get carried away.  They nearly beat Widnes a week ago and anything goes in a local derby so we'll be ready.  As for me, I'm in pain at the minute but I'm on strong painkillers and I'm hoping by Thursday I'll be in contention to play.

Danny Maun was in conversation with Mark Ward