Brodie can etch place in history
BRODIE Croft can become the least experienced premiership halfback in 42 years if the Storm wins Sunday’s NRL grand final.
It’s not a bad result at all for the 21-year-old Queenslander who was tried as first-choice halfback and rejected before suffering what was a minor knee injury in early September.
Dalby-born Croft, who played only two of 16 matches between rounds 6-22 as coach Craig Bellamy searched for his best playmaker, will play his 17th NRL game on Sunday.
Englishman Gary Stephens in 1976 won a grand final with Manly in his 14th premiership game for the Sea Eagles, but Stephens had already played matches over six seasons for his former club Castleford.
Croft’s fellow Queenslander Jahrome Hughes appeared set to be Melbourne’s finals halfback in their first finals foray since Cooper Cronk’s departure, playing four straight games as half from Rounds 19-22.
But Bellamy saw enough in Croft’s progress with Easts Tigers in Brisbane to make the change in halfback later in the season, confident he would fit the structure of a team he had not trained with as much as Hughes over many weeks.
Croft has missed only one week since, with an inflamed bursa in a knee suffered from bending his knee repeatedly in a game of lawn bowls.
Former Test halfback Andrew Johns said after Melbourne’s execution of Cronulla last Friday that Croft’s skill set made him the “perfect foil’’ for Cameron Munster’s game style at five-eighth.
Public praise from big names is something Croft is becoming used to, as Wally Lewis last year said he was ‘‘a real champion of the future’’ from what he had seen of his five games for Melbourne when Cronk was absent.
“It’s been a really big year. If you’d asked me two months ago if I’d be playing in the grand final, I’d have laughed it off,’’ Croft said this week.
“I kept my head down and tried to put in some big performances in the QCup to get another chance in the NRL – then grab that with both hands.
“Cooper said I needed to get back to what you’d call Brodie Croft’s brand of football, not try to be something I’m not.
“I learned a lot of him in my first two years here, just training with him and have a sort of apprenticeship. But I have so much more to learn.’’
Croft shares a house with Storm centre Curtis Scott, who played in last year’s grand final win over North Queensland, and has gone to school on the traps and distractions of the countdown to the big game.
“He’s told me a few things. I was part of the squad last year and learned how they prepared for the grand final, so I got a bit out of that,’’ he said.