NRL Grand Final: Roosters and Storm clash for premiership glory

Should Billy Slater be playing

Melbourne medicos were at a loss to explain how a metal screw in Dale Finucane's thumb bent yet the tiny bones around it remained intact.

Finucane, who will play in his fifth grand final in seven seasons, missed up to two months this year because of the injury to his right thumb, which he busted against Cronulla in round four then fractured against North Queensland.

It was only after he had X-rays that doctors discovered the screw had started to bow.

It started with a beer in an eastern suburbs pub just after the Roosters had plunged to the wooden spoon, lacking a major sponsor. Brad Fittler was gone as coach and there was little light at the end of the tunnel.

Almost a decade on and it might continue with a dinner toasting another NRL premiership and pledge from the now major sponsor for a significant charity donation to go with it, on top of the millions of dollars the partnership has already raised.

There are few associations as enduring as that of the Roosters and Steggles, one of rugby league's longest corporate partnerships.

Craig Bellamy did Wayne Bennett a favour when he passed on the chance to take his Broncos job earlier this year.

But it is just as easy to forget that had it not been for Bennett, Bellamy may not be preparing Melbourne for an eighth NRL grand final on Sunday evening.

Blake Ferguson remembers one of his first conversations with Josh Addo-Carr, a brash teenager who told him he would play in the NRL. Ferguson might have seen a bit of himself in Addo-Carr, he might not have. He knew of the skinny kid with speed to burn, but didn't really know him.

"I think he would have been 18 or 19 and he was just coming into his 20s," Ferguson said. "He told me he would be playing NRL games and I was like in the back of my head, ‘I hope you do’."

During the Storm’s annual pre-season camp at Geelong Grammar in February, the players and coaching staff combined to produce a theme for the forthcoming season.

Geelong Grammar is the most prestigious and expensive secondary school in Australia, the alma mater of future kings, such as Prince Charles, and past ones, the king of Malaysia 2006-11, and media barons, such as Rupert Murdoch.

Cooper Cronk's hopes of making a miraculous recovery from a shoulder injury to play in the NRL grand final appear to be fading after he was reduced to a multimillion-dollar bystander at the Sydney Roosters captain's run.

Just as he had everybody guessing 12 months ago about whether he would play on and, if he did, which Sydney club he would join, the sensational No.7 has found himself the storyline again ahead of another decider, this time because of his dodgy left shoulder.

He was named in the Roosters' 19-man squad on Saturday night, with Sean O'Sullivan and Nat Butcher dropping off the extended bench.

Adam O’Brien, Craig Bellamy’s right-hand man, is tasked with helping plot the downfall of the Roosters in the grand final. The team he will join next season.

While Cooper Cronk’s injury and Billy Slater’s judiciary hearing dominated the news cycle this week, O’Brien’s positional is another intriguing storyline. He is considered an NRL head coach in waiting and could potentially get his chance within the next 12 months given the volatile landscape for clipboard holders.

For the first and only time in his career, Billy Slater was an afterthought.

The International Player of the Year Awards in Leeds in November 2009 had been a Jarryd Hayne-a-thon.

The Parramatta star was named international fullback of the year, then player of the year; all of these accolades coming off the back of the best season of Hayne’s career.

It's the biggest question for Roosters fans. How badly injured is playmaker Cooper Cronk?

"The images of Cronk's arm were consistent with a full rotator cuff tear," says Professor George Murrell, an orthopaedic surgeon who specialises in shoulder injuries.

"In other words, all those tendons are torn off - there's no way you could rehab that and no way he'd be able to play at a reasonable level with all the tendons torn."