The brief encounter that can glorify or destroy you.

Oh yes, you can say you have been ttt5 me he better team right up to this snippet of time when you find yourself alone confronted with the burden of making the decision and executing the play that will determine your, and your teammates’, destiny; the effect of the label Premiership Player on future employment and comradeship. A lifelong justification for what you put yourself through.

We know from numerous accounts and from personal experience that in moments of imminent danger time appears to slow; evolution’s gift to our physically fragile species providing us with an opportunity to make the decision that saves us from extinction.

The same sensitive and complex brain though can also send us into another realm; prickling with panic, inaction, hurried over reaction, an overwhelming need for the drama to end.

Of course the ‘big moment’ that decides the game is often founded on earlier events; on acts of brilliance or lapses of judgement or discipline. Could there be a worse word in the biggest game of your life than ‘lapse’?

It often doesn’t matter how talented you are or how much you’ve trained for the moment.

One of the finest finishes to a match was the one to the 2008 semi-final between Brisbane and Melbourne at Suncorp. The minor premiers Storm had been victims of a dramatic last minute loss the previous week to the Warriors in the Qualifying Final. They had been trailing Brisbane all night with the home crowd singing their team home, and were on the verge of a straight sets finals exit, when after 78 min and 36 seconds… I’ll let the great Ray Warren and the dramatic interjections of Matty Johns take over here:

Warren: “Now it’s with (Ashton) Sims.

He’s lost the ball!!!

And Melbourne have the ball with a minute and twenty to go!…

It’s gone to Cronk. They’ve got numbers.

(Johns: “Aaah!!!”)

Inglis is over to score!

(Johns: “Aaaah!… Unbelievable!!!”)

The Premiers are back! The Premiers have scored!

(Johns: “Aaah, Rabbits!!!”)

This is just an amazing, an amazing fightback! The crowd can’t believe it! The Storm by two as the full-time siren is about to sound! Broncos have sunk to the ground all over the park.

And here is the mistake.”

The replay shows Sims being tackled from the side by Israel Folau, tilting him slightly and the ball impacts Sika Manu’s hip and spills out. The cameras and commentators seek Sims out just as they will seek Ben Hunt out seven years later. He is shown squatting with his head down, fingers pressing hard into his forehead.

“Ashton Sims is demoralised!”

But in the end, it’s the end that counts. A fortnight later in the game that really mattered -the grand final – Melbourne would be obliterated by Manly 40-0.

During the presentations following Manly’s 1996 Grand Final victory Paul ‘Fatty’ Vautin said: “And each of those blokes standing there will go to their grave a happy man They’ve played in a premiership winning side… they’ll all be mates no matter what happens for the rest of their lives”.

After last year’s Grand Final Michael Ennis referred to another element: The adulation of winning a grand final just erases all the mistakes that you made but when you lose, it just seeps into your soul.”

The allure of the Grand Final is unquestionable because it reduces the test as to who is the best to an 80-minute contest. In the great ones it can come down to the final second.

When asked “Could you pick a moment out of your entire commentary career that is special to you?”, Ray Warren replied: “That 2015 Grand Final. The last 3 minutes.”

When the final siren of that Grand Final between Brisbane and North Queensland was sounding the Broncos were ahead 16-12. The records tell us they lost 16-17. What happened in the final moments that cost them the premiership?

In the 43rd minute after consecutive penalties the Broncos, just a couple of metres from the Cowboy’s line, chose to kick a penalty goal for a 16-12 lead.

Should they have started a new set for a possible try and 20-12 lead? It has been said that the Broncos were too defensive with Hunt’s kicking options. But his first was a 51st minute 40-20 attempt that fell short.

They did make several attacking raids but rather than risk attacking returns from the Cowboys with high kicks or grubbers into the in-goal they repeatedly and expertly kicked for touch in the far left corner, slowing the play and hoping for a Cowboys error.

During a 70th minute attacking set with three tackles remaining and 15 metres from the tryline Corey Oates drops a poor pass from Darius Boyd.

A Ben Hunt 30 metre line break three minutes later doesn’t lead to points.

In the 77th minute, an Anthony Milford steal and another attacking play from the Broncos forwards ends with McCullough kicking deep into touch.

Hunt’s devastating dropped ball during golden point is still minutes away but he makes two crucial errors just prior to that which may have already cost the team the premiership.

The Cowboys spread the ball from the ensuring scrum. Like Frazier finding Ali with his brutal left hook, Hunt nails Kane Linnett with perfect contact – a tackle he had performed three minutes previously – except this time Hunt’s lethal combination of short stature, and powerful base impact the hips of the leaner and taller Linnett lifting and driving him almost head first into the ground, drawing a penalty.

It is indicative of the Bronco’s relentless defensive second half efforts but this one proves too zealous at a crucial time of the game. And Hunt he knows it as he’s seen mouthing an obscenity, towards himself.

With under two minutes remaining, the Broncos stop another Cowboy raid on their line. They play slowly, a dangerous ploy as there is still time for the Cowboys to attack if the Broncos fail to gain metres. Despite hit-ups by Sam Thaiday and Corey Parker they have only reached the Cowboys’ twenty metre line.

But, as he has done all match, Milford steps up with a big left step on Jake Granville, another left, a right and an acceleration past the grasping James Tamou and Ethan Lowe.

Now stop it there. It’s 78:48 on the fourth tackle and Milford is in the clear. Surely it is over now. A tackle and kick to come. North Queensland aren’t scoring from deep in their half with less than a minute remaining.

As he crosses over the thirty he slows, searching for an offload. McCullough, initially on his inside but marked by Justin O’Neill turns inside and now there are no options for Milford. At the halfway line he pulls up in front of Kyle Feldt looking like he is going to surrender in the tackle but, too close to the tackler, belatedly attempts a right foot step and Feldt’s desperate tackle loosens Milford’s grasp and the ball spills back. Hunt retrieves it but also finds Feldt in front of him. He slides to the ground. Watching now, it’s difficult to know if he is attempting to surrender in the tackle, prevent being pushed into touch, or scamper back towards the middle. Anyway, the ball is unsecured in one hand and is knocked down and retrieved by Feldt’s repeat effort.

Kyle Feldt. Remember the name.

The final set begins with exactly a minute to go. At no point do you seriously believe they can pull it off. Thurston’s first pass is high and fumbled but miraculously recovered by Linnett, a pass and an offload go to ground but bounce fortuitously. On the fourth, Thurston simply hands it to prop Matt Scott.

Then it’s the last. Thurston receives a tired pass from Jake Granville – not his first – that could easily have been knocked on. He looks to go down the blindside but turns back to the middle. Adam Blair, as he has done successfully throughout the contest, again tries to brutally shut him down but this time overreaches and with a shimmer and shrug, Thurston loses him.

Should Blair have tempered it just a little to ensure proper contact slowing the play to possibly seal the game? Perhaps.

As Thurston is threatening with his dummies and darts Blair desperately gets back to his feet and scampers into line on the blindside… the wrong side.

We all know fate has led us here. As early as the fifth minute Warren Smith had announced: ” A warning shot across the bows of the Broncos as to what they can expect on that right side when Thurston links up with (Michael) Morgan”.

Up to the final minute of the first half of the 2023 Grand Final it appeared all Penrith had to do for a third consecutive title was feed efficiently off Brisbane errors.

Finally, Thurston doesn’t have a powerful forward right there on his inside. McCullough comes straight at him but is pushed away and can only watch forlornly as the helmeted maestro, belatedly hit by a gallant Parker, sends Morgan on a diagonal run that draws several defenders.

One of them is Milford who, like Blair, has implemented Wayne Bennett’s defensive strategies to perfection by successfully shutting down several of Morgan’s right side raids and attempted offloads, as well as producing a one-on-one strip.

This time he is partially impeded by the other tackler Jack Reid and finds himself slightly behind Morgan grimly hanging onto this left shoulder and arm as Morgan’s right delivers a sublime pass putting Feldt over the try line as the siren is sounding; diluted and distorted by the shrieks of joy, despair and disbelief.

Fullback Darius Boyd, unable to get across to Feldt, goes to ground and slaps the turf assuming, like most, that Thurston will end it with his trademark conversion. Now on his back, his legs become entangled in the cables of the television cameraman rushing forward to film the Premier’s celebrations. A photographer, standing next to Boyd and looking for joyous footage, suddenly looks down and notices him thrashing about and chooses instead to record his desolation, and humiliation.

The missed conversion adds further status to this legendary game, but the overriding image is the one of poor Ben Hunt bowed and on his haunches after dropping the golden point kickoff. He knows it’s all over and that he has cost his team the premiership.

As the other Cowboys players celebrate the error, James Tamou, in a touching gesture, leans down to offer him some comfort.

Of course, if the Broncos had won it in golden point it would have been Thurston’s missed kick that defined the game’s legacy. Instead he wins the Clive Churchill (it could be argued Milford was the better player) not just through the drop goal which is a relatively easy one but because he keeps the ball alive during the last play and – through sheer will, a little luck, insane timing, and some sort of genius – delivers the victory.

But Thurston still revisits his missed conversion – the distinctive flat powerful curving kick for once collecting the upright and rebounding – with an anguished intake of breath, as if he’s still unaware of what is to come. And on hearing that the finish was Warren’s greatest moment he becomes visibly emotional. What a game.

The match – deemed the greatest of all time by many – will forever be there to watch for Thurston and his premiership teammates; a ghost to haunt Ben Hunt and his Broncos.

In writing this piece I was forced to confront, for the first time, the 2016 Grand Final between my team Melbourne, and Cronulla.

You see, I couldn’t bear watching it at the time, or in the eight years since. I documented the reason here:

https://www.theroar.com.au/2017/09/22/confessions-grand-final-coward/

Cronulla’s forwards and quick play the balls dominate the first half forcing consecutive line drop outs but can only produce an 8-0 halftime lead. What is telling is the toll such dominance is exacting: Jack Bird’s dead arm, Luke Lewis’s and Matt Prior’s battered faces, Paul Gallen’s rarely exhibited exhaustion after coming off for an interchange.

Then, early in the second half, Sosaia Feki is removed from the field following a brutal gang tackle. While he is hobbling along the sideline Prior, his head bandaged, is seen being escorted down the tunnel for a HIA.

Despite lack of possession and time in Cronulla’s half, Melbourne – as pristine looking, unhurried and unbattered as Penrith will look during their upcoming dynasty – is able to defend its line while inflicting serious physical damage on the Sharks while doing so.

Then, as is often the case, the referee’s whistle for a ‘relieving’ penalty changes the course of the game. Try to Jesse Bromwich.

In the 54th minute Jayson Bukuya, attempting to take down a rampaging Tohu Harris goes down with concussion.

Melbourne Storm’s forwards led by a young Christian Welch begin to dominate. However, a poor kick from Cameron Smith puts the ball over the dead ball line and the Sharks become reinvigorated, threatening Storm’s line repeatedly, only to be repelled.

Then Chad Townsend repeats Smith’s mistake, sending an over zealous kick across the dead ball line.

This time the error changes the course of the game. Two offloads by Welch to Smith see them switch seamlessly to the right side with Will Chambers – Suliasi Vunivalu is free on the edge – deciding to step inside to beat several tiring back pedaling defenders. to score.

One of those defenders is hooker Michael Ennis, a victim of the Storm in the 2012 decider. In awe of what Melbourne were capable of he admits after the game that he thought the try had sunk the Sharks.

Gus Gould agreed: “Well I can not believe this. The Melbourne Storm. They’ve got hearts as big as Phar Lap. The courage of their defence. The pressure they’ve been under. The environment they’ve had to walk into today”.

On the next set though Cronulla continue to attack with Jack Bird running hard into Smith and Dale Finucane who get tangled trying to roll him onto his back, drawing a penalty. Cronulla cross Storm’s twenty metre line on the fourth tackle. There have been few penalties in the game but now we have two in a minute to Cronulla. Welch , brilliant up to this point, makes an unnecessary tackle on Townsend who has already been taken around the legs by Smith, and collects him in the head.

The error is significant enough to live in the memory of one Storm supporter: “Remember Welch’s penalty in the 16 gf? (sic). Flop tackle in front of the posts after a player was already tackled and it was the 4th tackle? Sharks scored the next play. One of the stupidest penalties I’ve ever seen by a player. Welch has come a long way since …” he commented on a fan website.

On the fourth tackle of the new set Ennis turns the ball inside to Andrew Fifita who then proceeds to score one of the great match winning tries.

The dreadful prospect of having to watch slow motion replays of tries that cost your team a grand final is the reason I couldn’t bring myself to watch the game.

From the time Fifita receives the pass to the time he plants the ball down just three seconds pass. Slow motion reveals how special it is: the number of tacklers, the variation of tackles, and the necessary and manic re adjustments to them. But most significant is the relentless will of the tackled player.

The prop receives the pass in the middle, six metres out.

His first impact is on Munster. However, Munster’s footing and position are not set as has come out of the line to pressure Ennis, and Smith is delayed on his shift to the middle by the Sharks hooker’s quiver of a dummy to Gallen approaching on the blindside.

A still pic at that point suggests Fifita’s not getting to the line. Welch to his left, Cameron Munster in front, Dale Finucane in the middle of the posts and Tohu Harris hovering near the right upright. He accelerates off his left getting on the inside and slightly past the unstable Munster rendering his tackle ineffective as the big man’s momentum and drive means the fullback is simply being towed, hanging on for dear life. The usually brutal and technically sound Finucane goes in and under, hitting hard with his right shoulder but again Fifita’s momentum and greater height allow him to go over Funicane who, although still holding on, finds himself going to ground, his legs getting in the way of Munster who will be forced to disengage. .

Already, it seems, there may be too many cooks in the kitchen.

Cameron Smith, the head chef, has not yet arrived to try and set matters right.

In the previous tackle Welch has wrapped up and prevented the dangerous Prior from offloading. Instead of staying at marker with Smith he scampers across to the middle to ensure he’s there to prevent a try and rectify his penalty lapse.

Previously obscured by Munster and the enormous figure of Fifita, Welch’s head emerges. He moves in for a powerful tackle but instead his chest trampolines off the head of the falling Finucane. He attempts to reset but in the meantime Fifita, his legs not yet entrapped and still moving, powers again off his left and as he’s collapsing bulldozes Welch to the line just as the Storm captain arrives from the side. Initially Smith is finding it hard to commit to this assemblage of assimilating limbs and torsos, but as Fifita gets closer to the ground and is finally losing use of his feet, Smith’s able to perform his specialty of slowing the ball carrier’s momentum and turning the player onto his back.

However, before he has the prop fully adhered to the ground, Fifita, ball easily ensconced in his right hand, moves to plant it to his right but something stops him. He’s still slightly twisted the other way and Welch’s leg is on the line so perhaps he fears losing it. Or did he catch in the corner of his eye the introduction of the sixth actor in this slo mo wrestle for life?

Tohu Harris has been hanging out bracing himself for a possible offload by Fifita but finally commits and enters just inside the right post. If he remains there Fifita will lose the ball on his left foot. However, he sees the prop preparing to plant the ball over the other side and naturally attempts to slap the ball out of his hands. To do so, he has to lean over and balance on Welch’s shoulders who is seated on the ground struggling to blockade Fifita’s passage to the line. Understandably, Harris’s effort is clumsy. He tilts forward like a see saw on Welch’s head and shoulders and awkwardly and blindly swats at where he thinks the ball is. Before his follow-through is completed Fifita has already started to swing the ball back. Welch is unable to react. He still has Harris pressing down on his head and shoulders and now Harris’ left leg is airborne freeing space for Fifita’s legendary put-down.

Bunker footage from the scoring end shows Fifita bring the ball over in an arc. Munster’s puppy dog eyes follow it and identify the threat but trapped in the legs of Finucane at the end of a six foot four body he can only lean forward and impotently swat at the ball.

There’s one final scene. The serenest smartest man on the field still has a play. Lying across Fifita from the other side he knows what’s happening. He has to stretch his arm fully to dislodge the ball but can only place minimal pressure on the top of Fifita’s wrist as the ball touches the ground. It is only then that Smith manages to flick the ball from Fifita’s grasp.

Down 14-12 and with less than ten minutes remaining Melbourne change their style and tempo; keeping the ball alive and moving sideways looking for weaknesses in the Sharks line.

At 78 minutes Chambers again takes it on himself to score: sidesteps tackles, dummies to Kevin Proctor and sweeps wide, then kicks the ball along the sideline managing to slide past Ricky Leutele and then Gerard Beale. The footage switches to a closeup along the sideline showing him regathering the ball, miraculously remaining inside the field, and being tackled by fullback Ben Barba, followed by Beale and Leutele.

What we don’t see in the changed footage is the serious price Chambers and his team are paying for his extreme focus on his own exploits: Barba moving out to engage Chambers, allowing Cooper Cronk a 12 metre free passage to the line and surely the match winning try. Cronk is manically waving; his screams drowned by the screaming sea of blue, 49 years in the making.

If you dress a bad team in an impressive outfit the outfit quickly represents underachievement and bad culture. When you place an impressive team in an awful uniform it suddenly transforms into a symbol of success.

Black – with minimal embellishment for sponsorship – is the perfect colour for the current era of the Penrith Panthers. Brooding, brutal and relentless.

Yet, in the lollipop pink of their away jersey they still look brooding, brutal and relentless, but with an additional unnerving edge; the sort that explains why clowns have become figures of horror.

Up to the final minute of the first half of the 2023 Grand Final it appeared all Penrith had to do for a third consecutive title was feed efficiently off Brisbane errors.

Then comes the exhilaratingly insane period immediately after halftime when Ezra Mam scores three tries in ten minutes, providing  rare vision of Penrith looking vulnerable.

Mam’s first line-break has him sprinting to the corner with a quick Dylan Edwards closing rapidly. Unable to get hold of Mam as he plants the ball, the momentum sends the gallant Edwards slicing awkwardly over the sideline with the weight on his left arm until he becomes stationary and rights himself. Kneeling and out of breath he looks despondently across ground as the Broncos celebrate.

The replay of the most exhilarating try was caught superbly by the front-on camera. Walsh, his eyes planted on Nathan Cleary’s, performs his balletic leap and on landing puts an explosive left foot on the advancing halfback leaving him on the ground humiliated and still facing where Walsh came from. The Bronco fullback has advanced fifteen metres before Cleary is getting off the ground to watch the try unfold. Walsh has then put a step on Liam Martin, who also hits the ground, and immediately fends off Izack Tago. The Penrith centre, recovering from the shove, struggles to chase. When Walsh offloads to Mam he accelerates briefly but soon tapers off as Sunia Turuva takes over the doomed pursuit .

In the slow motion replay of Mam’s run, the despondent faces of Isaah Yeo, Cleary, Martin and Edwards are clearly seen in the background and slowly move out of focus as Mam extends his distance.

If they had produced this spectacular display of attacking football ten minutes later the Broncos would probably be Premiers.

But they didn’t. They didn’t score again.

Did they stop what they had been doing, or did Penrith stop them doing it? After they don’t score again immediately, an air of inevitability and normality gradually sets in.

Cleary, twice made a fool by quick stepping backs, keeps his composure. You can almost imagine him thinking: “Two tries five minutes apart, me scoring to win with a couple to go. Plenty of time”.

The first bad sign for the Broncos was at the 63rd minute when Brendan Piakura, freshly on the field, tackles a slipping Luke Garner. Piakura fails to fully commit to the tackle and assuming, incorrectly, the tackle is complete releases Garner who regathers his footing and continues his run with a disturbing lack of urgency from Piakura or the other defenders. In the next play Cleary dissects Capewell and Mam – replicating what the Broncos five eighth did to he and Yeo – and offloads to Leota for a try.

During the game Cleary was referred to as The Iceman. Certainly, he shares some of the traits of Michael Fassbender’s assassin in David Fincher’s brilliant film, The Killer: “It all comes down to preparation, attention to detail… keep calm, keep moving”.

Perhaps it’s more down to what Andy Murray said when he was trying explain what made him special: “My brain works differently to most people. Most people that get to the very, very top of anything are wired slightly differently”.

On Sunday, Melbourne will pose a similar attacking threat to Penrith as Brisbane did last year. Will the Storm be able to sustain it? Will Penrith be able to staunch it and find their way home again?

Hopefully this will be one of the great ones. Decided in the final moments through error, brilliance or sheer will.