Take yourself back to this time two years ago, with the Cowboys to face the Broncos in the NRL grand final. The talk at the time was all about the great Johnathan Thurston, and how a victory in this clash would cement his place as one of the greatest of all time.
Apparently leading his side to victory would silence the doubters who scoffed at JT’s lack of premiership success for North Queensland.
We know how the story goes from there, but just for a moment, consider an alternative.
With time expiring, what if Corey Oates had trusted his inside defenders, and stuck to his wing? What if he bundled Kyle Feldt into touch, and Brisbane scraped home?
For one, we would have been denied one of the great grand final finishes we’ve ever seen, but there is something else.
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What would the story be this week – this past month, even – if the Cowboys had lost in 2015? The narrative that we saw prior to their victory would have gained momentum over the past couple of seasons. Questions would linger about JT’s ability to lead a team to premiership glory.
And now, with their co-captain struck from the season through injury, his team makes a run without him. All of a sudden, the Cowboys, with Thurston out of the way, have stormed into a grand final. What would the press make of that?
The knives would have come out. It would be taken as proof that Thurston is not the leader, at club level at least, that we thought he was. The story would run that Michael Morgan had been suppressed playing with JT, and that we are finally seeing him lead and win in a way Thurston couldn’t.
And with perhaps only a year left in the game, the pressure on Thurston when he returns would be immense.
Of course, it doesn’t change anything that Thurston has or hasn’t achieved – careers live and die on random moments all the time. The point is that often we create a narrative based on the smallest of these moments, and that becomes the commonly accepted truth.
Not for a moment should we question Thurston’s leadership, but I can’t help but wonder, if not for one bad defensive read by a Broncos winger, would history would rate him very differently?
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