Keary tells of doubts about Cronk playing
Cooper Cronk stood on stage at the front of Allianz Stadium, sunglasses on and left arm in a sling, and quipped to the crowd: ‘‘I’ve been carrying Luke Keary for 10 months, so it was only fair he carried me for one game.’’
The Sydney Roosters continued their premiership celebrations with about 1000 supporters on Monday. Dylan Napa was still in his footy boots, Blake Ferguson was on crutches – he broke a leg in the second half yet somehow played on – while tough captain Boyd Cordner had the crowd in stitches when he delivered a few slurred words that needed sub-titles.
Latrell Mitchell was saluting on the Roosters’ open-top bus while Keary, the Clive Churchill medallist, was draped in a red, white and blue Roosters flag, almost a shorter, skinnier version of Superman, which was symbolic of the kind of role he played a night earlier.
Keary revealed he was not entirely sure Cronk would play even when midway through their warm-up on Sunday night.
‘‘As the week went on I didn’t think he would [play],’’ Keary said. ‘‘On Friday he trained and was really bad. He went off and seen some bloke, then Saturday morning he came in and said, ‘I’m a chance’.
‘‘In the warm-up I was pretty focused, it was the biggest game of my life. But when we were going through our run-throughs, he wasn’t there.
‘‘You don’t know until he walked in the door and started kicking the footy. I had a quick word with him before game because I still didn’t know what he could or couldn’t do. He said, ‘I can do a couple of kicks and a couple of passes, but I’ll probably hang around the short sides’, which is what I expected.
‘‘That second half against Souths gave us a bit of extra confidence we could do it [with him in that role]. It’s hard to say what would have happened without him.’’