KEY POINTS:
The halfbacks and five-eighths will decide tomorrow's NRL grand final.
Whichever of the sixes - Greg Inglis (Melbourne) and Jamie Lyon (Manly) - and the sevens - Cooper Cronk (Melbourne) and Matt Orford (Manly) take better control of tomorrow's game will win it.
And it's probable the
best one of those four will win the Clive Churchill medal as the grand final's best player, too.
There is curiosity that Cronk was Orford's understudy at the Storm until 2006, when the Eagles, who were rebuilding with the help of real estate magnate Max Delmege, made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
The fact that the Storm let Orford go tells you they didn't want him all that desperately. Backed by the very deep pockets of News Ltd, they had options to extend Orford's contract into third-party deals with media to bump up his pay without affecting the salary cap. That's what they've done to make up the A$450,000 ($529,000) a season needed to hang on to Inglis.
Cronk has a longer kicking game and perhaps more accuracy in the drops on to flying wingers. Orford, the experts will tell you, folds under pressure in the big games and his attacking kicks fly too high or fall too short.
Cronk is the better defender, making 89 per cent of tackles that come his way as opposed to Orford's 76 per cent.
Outside these two is another intriguing match-up in the blockbusting runner Inglis against the vision of Jamie Lyon, whose sublime passes create tries for other runners.
Lyon runs just 58m on average per game, Inglis 94m. Lyon has just 38 tackle busts registered this season, to Inglis' 90 and he has scored five tries to Inglis' 17. Lyon makes sure of more of his tackles, 88 per cent to 83, and he commits half the errors, 11 to 22.
Elsewhere the teams look very evenly matched. Both field packs are studded with representative players, have internationals in midfield and have star fullbacks capable of scoring long-range tries.
Manly have a total 2101 premiership games behind them, the Storm 2028. That reverses the experience advantage, Melbourne just 15 more than the Manly side they beat in 2007's grand final. The Storm have lost centre Matt King and forwards Ben Cross and Clint Newton from the 2007 game, Manly field the same team with the inclusion of Josh Perry who has been one of the buys of the season.
Much of the pre-match wrestling has focused on how much grappling there will be. The NRL referee's boss Robert Finch has warned that grapple tackles will be severely dealt with and that was post-Cameron Smith's suspension out of this game but that has not stopped either side continuing to prepare for a battle to win the hold-down.
The Storm started all the grapple tackle talk when they employed cage fighter John Donohue to teach them methods of slowing down the play-the-ball by using sparring holds. But in recent weeks, despite joining other clubs in flailing the Storm's introduction of this technique, Manly have now employed Brazilian jiu-jitsu expert Marcelo Rezende to teach them means of combating wrestle holds.
Both these teams are super-fit and will be looking to take advantage of quick play-the-balls themselves while preventing the opposition from doing so.
Manly's attack is more structured, Melbourne more inclined to the Polynesian flick-pass. The latter might be a game-winner, or it might be the game-breaker if the Sea Eagles grab the chance ball thrown under pressure.
This really is a 50/50 game, one that promises to be way more entertaining with more intensity for the duration and the result not known until the end, unlike last year's fizzer that faltered when Stewart was poleaxed.
Cooper Cronk
NRL averages
Runs 39m
Kicks 417m
Makes 89 per cent of tackles
2008
4 tries, 37 try-assists, 25 errors
Matt Orford
NRL averagesRuns36m per game
Kicks 350m
Makes 76 per cent of tackles
2008
3 tries, 31 try-assists, 38 errors