Why Cooper Cronk should call it quits but Billy Slater won’t

MAL MENINGA: I never thought I would say this, but I hope I never see Cooper Cronk play another NRL club game after this Sunday night.

Watching Cronk in different colours would seem wrong somehow. (Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

I NEVER thought I would say this, but I hope I never see Cooper Cronk play another NRL club game after this Sunday night.

While Cooper is yet to publicly declare what his future holds, outside of moving to Sydney and away from the Melbourne Storm, I personally hope that he doesn’t join a rival club to keep playing next year.

The decision of course is his, and when it comes to retirement, you absolutely have to make sure that you have got playing the game out of your system before you give it away.

Nothing will ruin a retirement quicker than the gnawing ache of feeling you should be still out there.

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Watching Cronk in different colours would seem wrong somehow. (Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

I know Melbourne have been working on a plan to keep him actively involved with the club next year as a coach and mentor for the club’s halves, and I think that is a terrific idea.

I don’t know what Cooper will do. Everyone knows he could play on for many years if he chose to, and he would be a success for himself and whichever club he chose to play for.

But the loyalist in me hopes that his tremendous career with conclude with him departing the game on the biggest day of the year as a one-club player.

He has been such an ornament to the game and to the Melbourne club, I would hate to see that diluted by spending a season or two at a club he does not love as passionately as he does the Storm.

Billy Slater won’t want to walk away after being out for so long. (AAP Image/Mal Fairclough)

BILLY WILL BE A HERO

BILLY Slater is the other big-name star yet to declare whether he will be playing on next season, but unlike Cooper, I don’t think Billy is ready to give the game away just yet.

With the amount of football he lost while injured, I think Billy still feels he has a lot to offer the game as a player, and his form this year suggests he is still a long way from slowing down.

It would be very tempting for Billy to walk away with Cooper should the Storm win. It is a rare luxury to walk away from this game on top and on your own terms.

But Billy still has so much more to give.

STORM TO WIN TIGHT GAME

I EXPECT Melbourne will beat the Cowboys in the grand final, but not by much. And Melbourne will have the Broncos to thank for it if they do lift the trophy on Sunday night.

The Storm were well below their best in the Week 1 win over Parramatta, and their first 40 minutes against the Broncos, it has to be said, was even worse.

The second 40-minutes against the Broncos last weekend was as good as we have seen Melbourne play during the finals series, and that has to be a worry for the Cowboys.

In the second half, they got it together. Their attack was smooth, they looked composed. They looked like a team being run back into form.

Cowboys coach Paul Green deserves all the credit his team receives.

GREEN KEEPS COWS HEALTHY

COACHES are the first ones to get the blame when a team is not performing — Jason Taylor, Neil Henry, Michael Maguire and Des Hasler are proof of that in this season alone.

And as brilliant as Michael Morgan and Jason Taumalolo have been in leading the Cowboys through this year’s finals campaign, so much of the credit for North Queensland’s success this year has to land in the lap of Paul Green.

The biggest victory Green has conjured from the Cowboys this year was not in making the grand final, but in convincing his players that they could.

As they kept winning matches, their self-belief only grew and grew.

Originally published as Why Cooper Cronk should call it quits but Billy Slater won’t