The men in purple will play Cronulla – who have never won a premiership – in next Sunday’s Grand Final.
Advertisement
And in the other corner you have Canberra – a team who for so long has been underachieving, struggled in their recruitment and who will be contesting their first preliminary final of the NRL era.
The Melbourne hooker helped pilot his side to a Grand Final appearance as the Storm downed Canberra 14-12 on Saturday night in the Victorian capital – the flawless way to celebrate halfback Cooper Cronk’s 300th NRL game.
Melbourne’s vastly improved centre Cheyse Blair probably has one of the biggest and most important jobs trying to immobilise Canberra’s monster Leilua, who scored two tries when the Raiders upset them in round 23. “I see him a bit because we play in the middle”, he said.
“The more games we play together the more fluent we’ll be”, Croker said.
Five players remain from that Melbourne squad, not including injured star Billy Slater, however the 32-year-old Cronk believes this year’s version isn’t too different.
“It’s pretty similar to the Cronulla team, to be honest”.
Melbourne Storm captain Cameron Smith.
It was less than a month ago when the Storm claimed the minor premiership with a round 26 shellacking of Cronulla, however Cronk denied it would be a mental advantage on Sunday.
Will Melbourne be good enough to take it up to the Sharks?
“I’m really proud of this group, of what they’ve done, not only tonight but the whole season”.
“We faced before him in the 2012 grand final when he was at the [Canterbury] Bulldogs – he was at his best in that game as well – nothing is going to change with Mick”.
“(They have) mobile, strong forwards, athleticism on the edges, and some smart creative halves”, he said. “They’re normally the ones that come out on top”.
Ben Barba, James Maloney, Michael Ennis, Matt Prior, Luke Lewis and Chris Heighington have all been a part of grand final teams.
16 minutes and Finucane fumbles the ball when attempting to play it and Storm get a penalty which is converted.
As black, white and blue decorations swamped the Shire over the weekend, Sharks players insisted they wouldn’t be caught up in the hype of their first grand final appearance in a unified competition since 1978.
Advertisement
Stuart is confident his players can rise to the challenge of a grand-final qualifier, giving a passionate speech at the Mal Meninga Medal earlier this week that nearly lifted the roof of QT Hotel.
