Forget the Cronk scars and Storm denials. Melbourne have a bullseye on Nathan Cleary

The scars of Cooper Cronk’s 2018 grand final performance might run deeper at Melbourne than the famed 15-centimetre crack in his shoulder blade. Or it might be yet another grand final hustle.

The Storm never got near Cronk six years ago as he claimed yet another premiership ring without a single run into contact and one functioning arm.

And this week Cameron Munster, Jahrome Hughes and Harry Grant all referenced the night Melbourne missed its mark when asked about targeting Nathan Cleary’s own suspect shoulder in Sunday’s decider.

“It would probably backfire on us,” Munster said. Hughes recalled ex-teammates telling him they “focused on Cooper too much, more than they needed to, and it probably came back to bite them”.

Grant also referenced Cleary’s truly impressive return this finals series, dismantling the Roosters, slow-boiling the Sharks and making 37 tackles across the two games, suspect shoulder and all.

Cleary’s dislocated joint is not in the same realm as Cronk’s car crash injury of 2018, or his own torn rotator cuff tendon in 2021.

Nathan Cleary’s shoulder popped out the last time he played Melbourne.Credit: Getty Images

But it does require off-season surgery and back-up half Brad Schneider being retained on Penrith’s bench as emergency cover.

And even if it wasn’t that rough, Cronk and Immortal halfback Andrew Johns both see targeting not just Cleary, but any playmaker, as a critical component of any winning Storm game plan.

Not least because, in Johns’ eyes, “if there’s a team that can isolate a halfback, there’s none better than the Storm”.

Johns would know. Listening to the champion halfback detail the ‘shark’ call he would deploy for the Knights to target a playmaker in defence, it bears more than a striking resemblance to how Melbourne have gone after Roosters veteran Luke Keary, among numerous other halves this season.

“Back in Newcastle we used to terrorise halves,” Johns said. “We’d split back-rowers on them, a back-rower and a lock at them, and have players in motion all around them to isolate them.

“Then we would get Ben Kennedy or Steve Simpson at them, and they would either go through with a break or get an offload or quick play-the-ball, then we’d play off that.

“We used to have a set called ‘shark’ set. We’d just sit on a half and just shark him. We’d do it for four or five sets in a row until they break. You’re putting pressure on them and also taking petrol out of their tank.”

Johns was famously apoplectic when Johnathan Thurston tore his own rotator cuff in the 2017 Origin series, but NSW “didn’t go to him once in the second half”.

‘Shark him’: One of Andrew Johns’ favourite calls.Credit: Getty

Eleven years earlier, Johns’ ruthless competitive streak left Thurston in tears after one Knights-Cowboys game following an emotionally draining lead-in.

Thurston had been mortified, and Johns incensed, by the media comparing the two playmakers at opposite ends of their careers in 2006. Johns duly urged Danny Buderus to send constant traffic at the North Queensland half, ‘sharking’ Thurston into submission.

Cronk has gone so far as to propose a fun short kick-off tactic – for Melbourne to start the decider by kicking a lofted “little sand wedge” straight to Cleary with the aim of “picking him up, dragging him out, throwing him around”.

“Give away a penalty if you want to rough him up,” Cronk said on The Matty Johns Podcast. “Don’t give away 10 in the bin, but make a statement.”

Huge doubt: Scans have confirmed Cooper Cronk has a serious shoulder problem.Credit: NRL Photos

Any success Melbourne has had against Penrith has come in such fashion. Bench prop Christian Welch’s reputation as the best kick-pressure exponent in the game was built on his harassment of Cleary in the 2020 Origin series and subsequent grand final.

The Storm’s two wins over Penrith this season had Cleary making 25 tackles in round 1, and 16 in an hour before his shoulder popped six weeks ago – heavier defensive loads than his usual 17 tackles a game.

While Welch can lead pressure on Cleary when he has ball-in-hand, it’s Grant and Hughes holding the key to where and how Melbourne line up their ball-runners, with former Panther Shawn Blore a formidable presence on Cleary’s right edge.

The loss of Nelson Asofa-Solomona is a significant one in terms of backpedalling defenders and quick play-the-balls for Grant to scheme out of dummy-half.

But there’s no better platform for a defender, Cleary or otherwise, to be ‘spotted’. And there’s arguably no better exponents than Grant and Hughes of opening up half a chance at the ruck to swing wider.

Eliesa Katoa and Hughes have scored 24 tries between them this season on the edge Jarome Luai will defend, with Hughes and Papenhuyzen bagging four against the Roosters by hammering Keary and Angus Crichton’s defensive combination.

Opposite Cleary, Blore is 107 kilos and with 38 offloads (the most of any Storm player in 2024) has regularly dragged in multiple defenders before either getting the ball away or a quick play-the-ball.

Outside Blore of course, lurks Munster, Melbourne’s ultimate x-factor. And this time last year, before Cleary turned in the greatest 17 minutes ever seen on the grand final stage, he produced what he described as the “worst 20 minutes of my career”.

Brisbane built what should have been a match-winning lead with one Ezra Mam try from a Cleary missed tackle and another when the No.7 shot out of the defensive line and Reece Walsh skipped around him.

So, they might not admit to it. But come Sunday night, the Storm will be circling Penrith’s No.7, suspect shoulder and all.

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