Melbourne Storm’s big three want to go out with a big bang
COOPER Cronk has brought more than footballing magic to Melbourne Storm and as the big three play their final game together he could have one final spell up his sleeve.
NRL
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PHOTO day was a busy one at Melbourne Storm headquarters on Monday.
Every player in the squad, in full playing kit, was wheeled in and told where to stand for the grand final team shot plenty of them would rather have avoided.
The entire group was snapped. Then it was whittled to the travelling 20, and finally to the 17 in the team for Sunday’s decider were allowed to stay.
“And soon enough all that they’ll want will be the big three,” Storm centre Will Chambers said to the chortles of his teammates as they wandered away, all nodding.
So much at Melbourne is about the “big three”, a term invented because it was easier than reeling off Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk by name, which anyone talking about Storm has had to do time and again since the terrific trio began an epic playing period together more than a decade ago.
Say it yourself — one takes half a second, the other about two. It is, like Storm, more efficient.
But for so long the three superstars hated it, no one more than the self-effacing Cronk, and when speaking publicly other Storm players, and coach Craig Bellamy, just wouldn’t go there.
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A culture of success based on everyone doing their job every minute of every game couldn’t be about just three players.
But as they continued to play together and continued to be the architects of so much winning in Melbourne — games, awards, public notoriety — the “big three” became part of everyone’s language.
When the awesome threesome became the playing spine for Queensland and Australia too, well, the “big three” term stuck. Now it’s part of the rugby league furniture.
From next year however, it will be a term used only in reflection, with Cronk leaving Storm, and most likely the NRL.
Such is Cronk’s standing his decision to move to Sydney has created an outpouring of praise to underline how much he has meant to so many at Melbourne.
Through his 14 seasons, 322 games, 92 tries, two Dally M medal wins, countless cups of peppermint tea with teammates, reams of advice, a bit of angry finger pointing mixed with calm direction, thousands of passes, game-winning field goals, card games on the bus, curious website offerings and unwavering support for his club the 33-year-old has left an indelible mark upon Melbourne regardless of the grand final result.
“He’s going to leave a legend of this football club irrespective of what happens on Sunday,” long-serving Storm football manager Frank Ponissi said of Cronk.
“Fairytale endings are nice but it won’t define Cooper Cronk.”
What does define him?
His genius as a player is matched by his output as a human — a teammate, a friend, a son, a brother, a partner and a role model.
Cronk would rather be loved for his work off the field, than on it.
“When I think of Cooper Cronk, I think humble and a champion,” said Storm giant Nelson Asofa Solomona, a teammate of the halfback in only 50 games.
“He has left a massive legacy here.”
Will Chambers has played with Cronk at club, state and Test level.
“I idolise the guy, he’s been a great help to my career,” he said.
Curtis Scott is still just a teenager, and Cronk 14 years his senior. But shared meals between the old and the new have helped shape the grand final bound centre’s approach to his sport.
“Some days he was like Dr Phil, giving me all this life advice about what I should and shouldn’t be doing,” Scott said.
“Sometimes I might have been going off track a little bit and he’d pull me aside and really look after me. It was a bit daunting at first but now I just treat him like one of my mates.”
Slater has known Cronk since they were teenagers playing under 19s footy in Brisbane. Smith too.
That they are still playing together as 300-gamers in the NRL is miraculous in the modern game.
They remain unbending friends, despite their differences, with Cronk, the only one of the three without kids, at the most extreme edge of the group.
“Our personalities are distinctly different,’’ Slater wrote in his recently released book.
“Cam is relaxed on the outside. Coop is more intense and very measured and organised.
“I’m probably somewhere in between.’’
Slater has so often been “somewhere in between” on the field too, running that attacking line up the middle between his two great friends.
They would shift the ball back and forth before Cronk, the ultimate try-feeder, would finally put the speedy fullback in to space, and he would score more often than not.
It was the one-two-three punch every opposition team knew was coming, but one they so often struggled to stop.
That’s not hard to understand. The “big three” had been working that play for 15 years.
It’s got to come out one last time on Sunday too. It just has to.
A final treat from the big three who should, and it’s a heavy should, lift that premiership trophy together to cap a relationship that is coming to its inevitable, and highly emotional end.
“You talk about fairytales and that would be one — but unfortunately fairytales don’t happen all the time,” Smith said.
“We’ve got to make it happen for him, and we’ll be doing our very best to do that.”
For him, with him, through him. Cronk that is.
It’s the holy trinity for Melbourne on Sunday, the key to Storm success.
One last run for the famous big three, and for “Super Cooper”, one final chance to remind everyone just how good he is on the field too.
GREAT BY ANY MEASURE
Cooper Cronk’s epic NRL career
NRL (debut 2004) - 322 games, 228 wins, 93 tries, 1 goal, 20 field goals, seven grand finals, 1 premiership
Origin (debut 2010) - 22 games, 16 wins, 3 tries, 2 field goals
Tests (debut 2007) - 33 games, 29 wins, 16 tries
Accolades - Dally M (2013, 2016), Clive Churchill (2012), Golden Boot (2016), Dally M Halfback of the Year (2006, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016).
RECORDS
* Second on Storm’s all-time games list
* Playing in his seventh grand final
* Will play his 32nd finals match in the grand final - the equal-third most in history
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