Why NRL teams have to break through the pain barrier to win the title

With players growing larger and faster than ever, and game play more physical and frantic than at any other time, it’s never been tougher to drag an NRL side through an entire season.

But of the past 10 premiers, the number of first-choice players missing on grand final day can be genuinely counted on one hand.

Isaac Luke’s suspension from South Sydney’s 2014 is the last time a genuine, walk-up, starting star watched a premiership win from the stands.

Christian Welch (Melbourne, 2017), Tevita Pangai jnr (Penrith, 2021) and Taylan May (Penrith, 2022) would also have featured in their respective 17s if not for injury.

Casting right back to Stuart being stretchered off in 1993 and Canberra’s title hopes going the same way, Brisbane’s unheralded Shane Perry is the only replacement No.7 to claim a premiership, stepping in for the sacked Brett Seymour for the last two months of 2006.

To patch up the old proverb, it takes a small NRL village to get a team to the finals, but the superstars to win it all.

Cooper Cronk playing in a dinner suit with his fractured shoulder in 2018, Sam Burgess playing 79 minutes after his face was smashed into several pieces in 2014, and half of Penrith’s 2021 grand final side limping into the decider.

All make for historic, storied examples of how having the best, even if they’re missing a limb, is preferred to missing them entirely.

Yet in 2024, Ivan Cleary has described this year as involving “more disruption than we have [faced] before”, given injuries to son Nathan and fullback Dylan Edwards have made for 11 different Panthers spine combinations.

Melbourne’s prize-winning playmakers Cameron Munster, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Harry Grant and Jahrome Hughes make up roughly a third of the Storm’s salary cap with combined wages north of $3.5 million.

But despite all being at the club since 2019, they have played just 15 games together as a quartet due to Papenhuyzen’s luckless injury run, Grant’s year-long loan to the Tigers and Munster’s groin injuries this season.

A runaway minor premiership gave Melbourne the luxury of resting Papenhuyzen’s bone bruising in his leg this week.

But even out of a 50-12 carve up of the Broncos, without his mercurial replacement Sua Fa’alogo (hamstring) for 2-3 weeks and were initially sweating verdicts on back-rower Eliesa Katoa (who has avoided a finals suspension for a high tackle on Tristan Sailor) and prop Tui Kamikamica whose feared arm injury has proven to be a cork to his elbow.

“An NRL season, it’s more demanding than ever,” longtime Storm general manager Frank Ponissi says.

“You do more planning around rest and workloads at this time of year than any other, and you adapt on the run … You can have all the science you want, and there is a lot of it, but communication with your players is just as important.

“Dale Finucane was someone you’d tell to take a day off, then walk past the gym and he’d be in there because that was how he relaxed and wound down.

“Obviously, you want your best troops playing, but you also want them in good shape. It’s no use just getting a team on the park if they’re completely busted – most of the time anyway.

“I think you’d take a fully fit and fresh 17 with a few players of that out, rather than a 17 that’s just hanging on physically.”

Penrith’s stunning 2021 grand final win – when Edwards took off his moon boot only to play, Cleary’s shoulder hung on by a thread and Moses Leota (calf), James Fisher-Harris (knee) and Brian To’o (ankle) all carried injuries that by all rights should have ruled them out – suggests otherwise.

Or it might be the exception to the rule. Much the same as North Queensland’s giant-killing run to the 2017 decider – when first Matt Scott, then Johnathan Thurston went down with season-ending injuries, only for Michael Morgan and Jason Taumalolo to lead several busted teammates through a series of finals upsets from eighth place.

Sandon Smith steps up to the Roosters’ scrum base with Luke Keary to take charge as the senior half, not dissimilar to Morgan for Thurston, or Jarome Luai when Cleary has been out this year.

“It wasn’t even a choice” was Robinson’s response to the suggestion Joey Manu at five-eighth might straighten up the Roosters attack with he and James Tedesco as a regular one-two punch around the ruck.

Robinson is backing Smith as a playmaker both now and next season when Keary is in southern France, Walker is still recovering and Chad Townsend rolls into town.

But namesake Brandon Smith did point to awareness of the Roosters attacking pitfall of recent years when he picked over their most recent loss to Melbourne six weeks ago.

The 24-8 scoreline flattered the Tricolours from a contest they were never really in, making for 19 losses from their past 20 games against the Storm and Panthers.

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“We tried to finesse our way around the game early on and tried to pull them apart too early,” Smith said on The Jam and Cheese podcast with James Graham.

“We didn’t respect their defence a lot. We had a breakthrough on how we wanted to play, and we went out there and did exactly the opposite … That’s not how we wanted to play against them… We know that we’re not going to beat Penrith or Melbourne if we play that style of footy, we lacked patience.”

Walker and Brandon Smith are two of the unique, enigmatic playmakers in the NRL, and can never be described as shrinking violets with Steeden in hand.

Robinson acknowledged that Connor Watson and Sandon Smith as replacements “will be different compared to Brandon and Sam … but we’ve got our system. And you express your personality on the back of that.”

History says it’s the missing personnel that has already dictated the Roosters fortunes this finals series.

But the personalty of Robinson’s side in their wake – particularly when they come across the premiership front-runners – is worth keeping an eye on too.

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