Harris believes Sinfield SPOTY win would be memorable

Correspondent

Iestyn Harris says he would rank a Kevin Sinfield victory at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards as one of the pinnacles in the sport’s history. 

Sinfield, the first-ever rugby league player to be nominated for the main award since its inception in 1954, played alongside Harris at Leeds when he first made his debut.

Harris is just the latest rugby league name to get behind Kevin ahead of Sunday’s event, and Sinfield’s former captain is of the belief that Sinfield triumphing on Sunday could be one of the sport’s biggest moments.

“It’s massive for the game that Sinfield has been nominated and that a Rugby League player is amongst the nominess,” he said.

“Personally for Kevin, it’s huge, too. For a long time the sport perhaps doesn’t get a lot of national coverage, but it could now if he was to win it. This could be one of the most memorable moments in the sport if Kevin was to be named Sports Personality of the Year, especially with the competition that he’s facing.”

Sinfield will line up alongside some of the biggest names in the sporting world, such as Andy Murray and Lewis Hamilton, but Harris is hoping that the whole of Rugby League gets behind Kevin to allow him to take home that illustrious award.

“I’d love him to win it, but it’s obviously going to be very difficuly for him with the other nominees who are up for it,” he said.

“We’ve had national recognition when Wigan and St Helens won Team of the Year, but now it’s time to step up again and support Kevin to win such a prestigious award.”

Voting for BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2015 on Sunday December 20 will be available over the phone (numbers will be provided on the night of the awards ceremony) and for free at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/spoty.

In order to vote online, you will need to be registered with the BBC sign in system, BBC iD, by visiting https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/id/register.

If you have already registered with BBC iD, then you only need to sign in on the day of the awards to cast your vote.