The big three, Cam Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk, are back helping to run the Storm attack

Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk are once again playing their part in the dynamic Melbourne Storm attack.

Cooper Cronk, Cam Smith and Billy Slater are still involved at the Storm’s attack

The big three are once again plotting another Melbourne Storm premiership. Cameron Smith may be the only member of the Storm’s holy trinity still playing the game, but Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk have played their part in energising a supercharged attack that has the Storm within one win of another grand final.

In concert with Storm assistant coach Marc Brentnall — the man charged with finetuning an array of attacking talent that has yielded more than 500 points this season — Smith, Slater and Cronk have been pulling apart opponents on a weekly basis.

Slater’s involvement with the Storm is well known, his brain always available to be picked by Brentnall. Cronk less so, mainly out of respect to the Sydney Roosters, where he is also employed. However, the form of halves Cameron Munster and in particular Jarome Hughes this season owes much to Cronk being only a phone call away.

“In pre-season it was a weekly thing,” Brentnall said. “With the COVID-19 break, it probably hasn’t been a regular thing. There have been times where they (Cronk, Hughes and Munster) might have gone a couple of weeks without touching base and at other weeks they might have been in touch a couple of times.

“Coops is big on leaving it up to them. He doesn’t ram it down their throats. He is more about getting their thoughts and what they are seeing.

“If they need something he is always there. If he sees something, he makes contact.”

The result has been a change in the Storm’s DNA. Under coach Craig Bellamy, they have always been regarded as a team that outworks their opponents. If you don’t like hard work, you don’t survive at the Storm.

This season, they have added some attacking dynamism to go with the defensive fortitude. They showed against Parramatta that they are capable to blowing teams away, turning on the afterburners in the second half to set up a preliminary final showdown with Canberra at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night.

“I have always been on the defensive-minded side,” Bellamy said. “We made a little point this year, especially with the rule changes, that we probably had to change some of the things we did. There has been a little bit of experimenting at training and in games.

“Marc Brentnall, who does most of our attack, he talks to Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk. I have to give him a lot of credit for some of the ideas he has come up with.”

Brentnall is loath to accept too much of the credit. He is more than happy to share it with Slater and Cronk, whose roles at the Storm maintain a long association with he club that was only broken when Cronk moved to Sydney to spend the final two years of his playing career at the Roosters.

There was always a job waiting for him in Melbourne and the Storm are reaping the benefits.

“Bill is a lot more across the team attack,” Brentnall said. “He has done a great job with all our fullbacks. But he has also done a lot of work with our spine and our edges and the team attack in general.

“We know how smart he is. He is always coming up with ideas. I will talk to him most weeks. If there is anything he sees in our games, he will ring me.

“He will throw plenty of stuff up. But like on the field, he was always calling plays for Cam and Coops. Sometimes he got it, sometimes he doesn’t.

“Both of them have been invaluable and very lucky to have their brains to pick.”

The Storm head into Friday night’s game as favourites to return to the big show, their cause helped by the Queensland government after they refused a request to allow the Raiders to prepare in a hotel on the morning of the game.

The Raiders, via the NRL, raised the issue with the Queensland government three weeks ago. They have been patiently waiting for a response and it finally arrived late on Wednesday, much to the dismay of chief executive Don Furner and coach Ricky Stuart.

The Raiders will now be forced to fly into Brisbane only hours before kick-off and head straight to the game.

“Bitterly disappointed,” Furner said. “The bureaucrats clearly have their feet up on a desk. They clearly couldn‘t be bothered with it. They’re clearly setting us up to fail.”

Stuart added: “The NRL have been trying to get in communication with the Queensland government for the past three weeks to get this arranged and ticked off.

“The Queensland government got back in touch with them at 3pm yesterday afternoon. So it hasn’t eventuated.

“It won’t affect us. It is another punch in the head we have copped in the week leading up to a game.”