Green coy on Scott’s return to line-up
MATT Scott is a chance to make a fairytale return in next week’s NRL grand final after North Queensland coach Paul Green refused to rule his cocaptain out of selection.
The Cowboys advanced to the season decider against Melbourne after upsetting the Sydney Roosters 29-16 at Allianz Stadium on Saturday night.
Scott was omitted from the final line-up against the Roosters despite being included in a 21-man squad last week for the first time since undergoing a knee reconstruction in April.
Green now faces the challenging decision of whether to recall the Australia and Queensland star as the Cowboys chase a second premiership in three years.
Asked after the preliminary final win whether Scott would come back for the grand final, Green said: “We’ll worry about that next week.”
Pressed on how close Scott was to facing the Roosters, he said: “Tonight was a great win, so let’s just enjoy the win for what it was. We’ll talk about what happens next week, next week.”
Green was adamant in the lead-up that Scott would only return should any of his players succumb to an injury before the match.
All came through unscathed from the win, including interchange weapon Coen Hess, who overcame a niggling knee injury to carry the ball for 84m in a 29-minute stint.
Veteran Scott Bolton (137m, five tackle busts, 20 tackles) was immense against the Roosters alongside makeshift prop Shaun Fensom (65m, 17 tackles). Lock Jason Taumalolo again carried the pack with a game-high 237m.
Rookie Corey Jensen, who made just 49m in 15 minutes on Saturday, is the forward most likely to make way should Green make space for Scott.
Asked a third time how a tough a call it would be to leave Scott out, Green said: “The boys that are there have done a fantastic job to put us in this position.
“As I said before, let’s just enjoy tonight for what it is.”
WILL Chambers refuses to be haunted by the ghosts of 2016 as Melbourne prepare to avenge last year’s NRL grand final loss.
The representative centre bristles when the subject of last year’s grand final loss comes up, adamant it has been dealt with and banished to the dustbin of history.
The Storm went down 14-12 to Cronulla in last year’s season decider but only after the Storm failed to capitalise on a Chambers break with two minutes on the clock which could have won them the game.
After the Queensland and Australian outside back danced his way down the right touchline, he kicked and regathered only to be wrapped up by Ben Barba before he had a chance to look up.
Had he looked inside, he would have seen Cooper Cronk unmarked and with the tryline begging. A lot was made of that moment in the wash-up however few speak about Chambers’ brilliant effort to score in the 64th minute which gave the Storm the lead for the first time.
“Why bring up last year?” Chambers said after Melbourne qualified for Sunday’s grand final with a 30-0 thumping of Brisbane.
According to the 29-yearold, the Storm line-up has undergone significant turnover in the past 12 months, making the past irrelevant.
“We’ve got seven new kids that weren’t there last year who played their first finals game when we played Parramatta,” he said.
“It was hard, it was hard to accept but we’ve put that behind us. We’ve got a new group of players. We’re trying to move forward and trying to worry about now.”