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Halfback Cooper Cronk has been chosen to lead Melbourne Storm in Friday’s Carnegie World Club Challenge against Leeds Rhinos.
The 24-year-old Cronk, who made his Test debut in Australia’s 58-0 win over New Zealand in October, was handed the captaincy duties in the absence of Cameron Smith.
Loose forward Dallas Johnson skippered Melbourne in Friday’s friendly at Halifax and is also expected to play a leadership role in Friday’s game, for which almost 30,000 tickets have been sold.
“We have a leadership group,” Cronk told a press conference at Elland Road.
“I’ve still got a role to play, nothing changes.”
Coach Craig Bellamy has included two inexperienced players in his 20-man squad, which will be whittled down to 18 on Thursday.
Will Chambers, 19, who has played just five senior matches, is set to take the place of Test centre Matt King, who played a key role in Storm’s grand final triumph but who is now at Warrington.
And Russell Aitken, 22, who has made eight appearances in the National Rugby League, will plug the gap created by injury to stand-off Greg Inglis.
“We’ve got a couple of slight injury problems but I don’t think it’s going to prevent anybody from playing,” said Bellamy.
“We’ll basically go with the team that started on Friday night. We started with that team against Manly in our first trial so those guys have had some games with those combinations.”
Melbourne, who have been in the country a week already, were continuing their preparations today with an opposed training session with Super League club Hull behind closed doors at Featherstone’s Post Office Road ground.
“It is something different,” explained Bellamy. “Obviously all our training sessions have just been with us. This will hopefully be a bit more stimulating for our players.”
Hull coach Peter Sharp, who is a former member of the Storm’s coaching staff, said: “It will be great for our boys and it is a great opportunity for them to experience the intensity of a Melbourne training session.
“We will play an opposed game, which will be semi-contact, and we’ll also do some skills and drills together.
“It is a tremendous opportunity for us, while also doing them a bit of a favour as well in giving them a good work out.”
Leeds have no injury worries and coach Brian McClennan is expected to field the Rhinos’ Grand Final-winning line-up.
Storm (squad): Russell Aitken, Adam Blair, Will Chambers, Cooper Cronk, Israel Folau, Matt Geyer, Ryan Hoffman, Dallas Johnson, Antonio Kaufusi, Jeff Lima, Ben MacDougall, Sika Manu, Dane Nielsen, Anthony Quinn, Billy Slater, Jeremy Smith, Sam Tagataese, Aiden Tolman, Steve Turner, Brett White.
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