KEVIN SINFIELD strolls into Leeds’ Kirkstall training base just before 7am. He has already been on the trans-Pennine M62 an hour from his native Oldham yet, despite the biting cold and early hour, the Rhinos captain sports a cheery grin. “The Grand Final’s a million miles away,” he says, “but the journey starts here.”

The road Leeds have travelled in the past three years has led to Old Trafford and three Engage Super League triumphs over St Helens, who again start the season as second favourites. After a quick breakfast and weight session, Sinfield and the Leeds squad board a coach for the three-hour trip to the isolated Eskdale youth hostel in the west Cumbrian fells.

Leeds have swapped the five-star luxury of Jacksonville in the United States, where Russell Crowe entertained them on his yacht at their pre-season camp two years ago, for three days of team bonding, walking and mountain biking around Scafell. The players are sharing eight to a room, cooking for themselves, and will warm up for Friday’s season-opener against the Crusaders at Wrexham with a friendly this afternoon against Whitehaven.

“It’s not Florida, where everything’s laid on for you, but it’s probably more beneficial,” said Sinfield, in his seventh year as captain. “You don’t waste two days travelling. When you’ve eight lads sharing a room, you probably don’t get that much sleep but you do nail down some values. That’s what the Cumbria trip’s all about, cementing this team.”

In their splendid isolation, Leeds plot a record-extending fourth successive Super League championship. There is also an appetite at Headingley to visit Wembley for the first time in 11 years in the Challenge Cup, though the first priority is regaining the World Club Challenge title they surrendered last year to Manly, at the expense next month of Melbourne, the 2009 Australian champions.

The lessons of that defeat have been absorbed by a longer pre-season for those players involved with England in last autumn’s Four Nations tournament, such as Sinfield. “Those of us returning from the World Cup in 2008 didn’t rejoin the squad until the new year. Both mentally and physically, we weren’t ready for the Manly match. We’re miles ahead of where we were at the same stage last year.”

For rivals in the domestic game sick of the sight of Sinfield lifting the Super League trophy — for the first time in 2004 and after the past three finals — the Leeds monopoly is testing their patience and that of supporters in general, who crave a new script. Not that a Leeds squad bolstered by a couple of quality Antipodean recruits in Greg Eastwood and Brett Delaney have had their appetite sated.

“This is a very motivated group of players and the new boys are the same,” Sinfield said. “When you’ve tasted Grand Final success, you just want more. The feeling is right up there with the birth of your children.”