NRL Grand Final 2016: Storm’s Cooper Cronk and Sharks’ Chris Heighington long road to decider
PAUL KENT: Cooper Cronk and Chris Heighington are two very different players but their journey to the grand final has one thing in common. Heart.
Opinion
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HARD work brings the reward and, come Sunday, rugby league’s two most self-made men, Cooper Cronk and Chris Heighington, bring the kind of story you tape to your mirror for a daily dose of inspiration.
Cronk remains the sentimental favourite because his story is well told.
Heighington came to the NRL the hard way, less celebrated.
He was an uncomplicated junior footballer with few frills, as tough as a Sunday morning hangover but lacking the skill and some believed the size. They might have been right.
Heighington came to the Wests Tigers through open trials. They rarely exist anymore, and barely did then, given the kids with even a whiff of talent were already snapped up by astute managers pitching them to clubs while they were still learning to shave.
Heighington had none of that. What he had was heart.
He turned up and played hard at the trials and coach Tim Sheens, looking to put some toughness in the Tigers’ 2003 squad, rolled the dice. He got an early indication of just how much it meant to Heighington.
He was living at Umina, where he had all his life, and all through pre-season he made the long drive to training until one day, in the heat of summer, fires burned through the Hawkesbury.
The freeway was closed. No hope of driving to Sydney this day.
The Wests Tigers got to training aware Heighington and several other Central Coast kids were not going to make it. Then Heighington walked in.
He got up early and caught a ferry from Ettalong to Palm Beach. It’s a short trip, as the crow goes.
At Palm Beach he was still barely any closer to Concord. So he caught a bus to Manly and from Manly he caught another bus to the city. Then he got a train to Burwood. He walked out of Burwood station and caught a cab to Concord Oval.
How does anyone get in the way of a guy like this, Sheens thought when Heighington walked in. Heighington got a contract. Soon, the Tigers found a whole lot more in Heighington than they anticipated.
“The heart and soul of the club,” says Benji Marshall.
He had heart and a sense of humour. He found a way with the senior players and when he became a senior player himself he was still able to connect with the young kids coming in.
“He’d always get player’s player because everyone wanted to play with him,” Marshall says.
He had hands of stone and a passing game not much better but through hard work Heighington became a regular in the top grade at the Tigers and was there the day they won their first and only premiership.
Now he gets another chance.
Cronk came to Melbourne through more conventional means but nobody anticipated the career he would have.
He played centre and five-eighth and wherever else he was needed until Matt Orford left the club at the end of 2005 and Craig Bellamy wondered if Cronk could do the job.
From his 13 games the previous season, 12 were off the bench. Few realised, but it was the perfect partnership.
Cronk acknowledged as much last week when he spoke of his upcoming 300th game, last Saturday against Canberra.
“No disrespect to any other football club but I’m probably a 100-150-game player somewhere else if it wasn’t for the influence of Craig,” he said.
It was both modest and correct.
Cronk was not the player for a coach to tap on the back and say do your best. He needed clear direction and instruction. Bellamy provided that in spades.
He set about the education of Cronk and nobody responded better and now he heads out for game 301.
For Heighington, the one who should not have made it, it will be game 295. All done on the back of the kind of hard work nobody sees and few celebrate.
As Marshall says of that day at Concord, it was not just about getting there to train, and the slaps on the back from his surprised teammates as he walked in.
“He did the same trip home,” Marshall says.
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