JUST IN: Poetry enthusiast Matt Peet hopes Wigan Warriors embrace the moment in the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley.

In an attempt to give his Wigan team an advantage as they go to the Betfred Challenge Cup final on Saturday at Wembley against Warrington, Matt Peet will tap into his passion for beat poetry.

Peet is certain that the cut-and-thrust action of the 13-a-side code can benefit from some of the psychological strategies used by icons of the 1960s counterculture like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

Breath practice and meditation have become essential components of Peet’s coaching philosophy as he helps his players reach the “flow state,” which is a fundamental Zen Buddhist concept in which an individual becomes fully absorbed in a single, focused activity.

“We talk a lot about finding flow, and this week won’t be any different,” said Peet, a lover of poetry who graduated with a 2:1 in English from Manchester Metropolitan University before going on to pursue his increasingly lucrative rugby league career.

“The guys regularly practice yoga, meditation, and breath work, and we have an accepting team.” It’s about enabling people to release themselves, and every task they perform, including the visualizations, aims to place them in a state of flow when the big day arrives.”

In 2022, Peet won the Challenge Cup at Tottenham to cap off his first full season as Wigan’s head coach. Since then, he has led the team to victories over Australian champions Penrith in the preseason World Club Challenge and the Grand Final.

However, the 41-year-old Peet is determined to follow the lead of some of his literary idols and urge his players to live in the now rather than continuously thinking ahead to possible future triumphs as the trophies pile up at the DW Stadium.

“A lot of those great works from Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg come out of eastern philosophy and the Buddhist religion, and they are about being in the moment and not getting caught up with chasing certain things,” Peet said.

We make an effort to inculcate it in both our coaching staff and team. The goal of the breath work is to bring the guys back to center while maintaining the ideal flow state and avoiding extremes in emotion or activity. We talk about it quite a bit.”