This is the opening salvo in a series on three NRL grand finals that were decided at the death – from sheer luck, calculated cold hearted cruelty, sheer genius or an error from a player who will never forget, a memory that, according to Michael Ennis, “seeps into your soul”.

First off it’s the 2015 grand final.

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

The brief encounter that can glorify you … or destroy you.

Oh yes, you can say you have been the 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?

One of the finest finishes to a match was the one to the 2008 semi-final between Brisbane and Melbourne at Suncorp Stadium.

The minor premiers from Melbourne 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, whenafter 78 min and 36 seconds … Ray Warren and the dramatic interjections of Matty Johns can take over from here:

Warren: “Now it’s with (Ashton) Sims. He’s lost the ball!!! And Melbourne have the ball with a minute and 20 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”.

The allure of the GF 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 three minutes.”

When the final siren of that game between Brisbane and North Queensland was sounding, the Broncos were ahead 16-12. The records tell us they lost 17-16.

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 Cowboys’ line, they 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?

In the 77th minute, an Anthony Milford steal and another attacking play from the Broncos forwards ends with Andrew 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 potent 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 Broncos’ 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 Cowboys 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’ 20-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 30 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. Johnathan 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 Granville – not his first – that could easily have been knocked on.

He looks to go down the blindside but turns back to the middle. Broncos forward 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 in the Fox League commentary, 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”.

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 the North Queensland five-eighth 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.

Broncos 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 celebrations. A photographer, standing next to Boyd and also 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, 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 Medal (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 wide – with an anguished intake of breath, as if he’s still unaware of what is to come.

On hearing that the finish was Ray 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 and a ghost to haunt Ben Hunt and his Broncos.

Published on The Roar

https://www.theroar.com.au/2024/10/20/the-moments-that-really-matter-how-the-2015-grand-final-was-decided-well-before-the-last-second-try/

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:

” … the night my shaking finger refreshed the mobile phone and I watched the line at the top complete its journey across the screen.

Then – like a shot of poison to the soul – this appeared.
MEL 12
CRO 14 

COMPLETE”

On the eve of the game Shane Flanagan made an admission – a sentiment replicated by Ivan Cleary in his just released auto biography- of his coaching debt to Melbourne Storm: “Two years ago, when we talked about where we wanted to be as a club, Melbourne Storm were one of the clubs we looked at. They have been the most consistent team for ten years, for mine. We admire them as a club and a benchmark.”

Unlike Penrith, they didn’t become the benchmark. But benchmark wasn’t their immediate concern.

This was a 48 year old club with just three grand finals and no premierships against a 17 year old club already in its seventh grand final.

A club’s first premiership is the pinnacle. The coach is never forgotten and no one confuses or is unsure of the players that can happen with the plethora of brilliant personnel who pepper the great club dynasties.

The mission for Cronulla was clear. Its first premiership in front of a crowd dominated by its fans.

You often wonder how the motivations of perennially successful clubs can possibly outstrip those of clubs vying for first time glory. Back to back, three in a row.. four in a row remain potent goals and you’d think the resentment felt towards them and the hostile crowds are a source of motivation.

But perhaps the word ‘motivation’ is an anomaly for the great teams. Yes, they may have great lists but they seem to be hot wired by their culture and coach to win.

The Storm were intent on restoring their reputation as a premiership force. They had produced three underwhelming finals performances since the 2012 premiership and had been brutally exposed in the 2015 preliminary final by the Cowboys.

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

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

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 goal 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 is seen, his head bandaged, 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 alters 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, and 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”.

Cronulla refuse to submit to their physical battering and the inevitability of empire, and continue to attack. Prior has passed his HIA and Bird’s arm has seemingly recovered. In the next set, it’s Bird who runs hard into Smith and Dale Finucane who get tangled trying to roll him, 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 late 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.

Real time appears to slow in the drama of the event. Slow motion replays further enhance the agony of it all and reveal how special it is: the number of tacklers, the variation of tackles, and the necessary and manic re adjustments to them. But most prominent and 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 he 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 image 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 brutal and technically sound defence-machine Finucane goes in and under, hitting hard with his right shoulder but again Fifita’s momentum and greater height allow him to go over the Storm lock 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 Smith arrives from the side.

Initially the Storm captain 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 enormous 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 does he catch in the corner of his eye the introduction of the sixth actor in this slo-mo wrestle for survival?

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, swatting blindly 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 bringing 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. Cameron Smith, the serenest and 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 12-14 with less than ten minutes remaining Melbourne are confronted with the necessity of changing their relentless errorless defence oriented game. They keep the ball alive, moving sideways looking for weaknesses in the Sharks line.

At 78 minutes, Chambers again takes it on himself to score.

He sidesteps tackles, dummies to Kevin Proctor, sweeps wide and 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 heroic exploits: Barba moving out to engage Chambers, leaving Cooper Cronk alone with a 12 metre free passage to the line, and the premiership winning try.

Cronk is waving frantically.

His screams drowned by the screaming sea of blue, 49 years in the making.

Published on The Roar

https://www.theroar.com.au/2024/11/06/the-moments-that-really-matter-how-sharks-weathered-the-almost-perfect-storm-to-break-drought/