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What could (or will) be the best sports story to emerge from the 2014 NRL finals series?
The Roar‘s columnist Steve Turner mentioned on Tuesday that each of the eight title aspirants would have a great story to tell by achieving grand final glory. It certainly got me wondering.
For some fun on the eve of the finals, I’m asking you to forgo any personal team bias for a few moments and give my opening question a little thought. With a fair knowledge of the histories behind all of the remaining combatants, I suspect there are some fantastic scripts begging to be written.
More 2014 NRL Finals:
» The Roar’s Manly vs South Sydney preview
» 2014 NRL Finals match information, team lists
» Injuries, upsets and dark horses
» Mastermind’s week one finals preview
I am cordially inviting you, as a league-loving Roarer, to let your imagination wander and tell us which team could or will provide us with one of those classic sporting yarns culminating in grand final triumph.
My choice comes straight from the pages of the crusty old Ripley’s Believe It Or Not chronicles. Let’s imagine that the Penrith Panthers win the comp.
Now that would be truly amazing for a club in the middle of a re-building phase. Just three years into Phil Gould’s five-year plan to win the premiership. It would also be incredible to do so without the team’s first-choice half-back Peter Wallace, as well as many more top-liners banished to the bleachers because of injury.
A Panther premiership in 2014 would mean that Jamie Soward, easily one of the most maligned footballers of the modern era, would go down in folklore as a legend. He would deserve nothing less than that – he has sparked and carried this team into the finals with the best form of his chequered career.
And what a strange team we are looking at as Ivan Cleary’s men head into Saturday’s clash with minor premiers Sydney City at Allianz Stadium.
Soward is spearheading a potpourri of youth and experience that continually defyies the odds – and keeps winning games it is expected to lose. With a swagger and confidence thought to be confined to his scrap-book long ago, Sowie is running the ball these days and scoring tries, landing 40/20s, booting goals and even making deadly front-on tackles. Looking for a fairytale? It could be hatching at the foot of the mountains.
Soward’s partnership with emerging young fullback Matt Moylan is pretty much shadowing the sensational Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater double act at Melbourne. The pair has developed an almost uncanny union, but there are others joining in with names such as James Segeyaro, Jamal Idris, Adam Docker, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and Josh Mansour.
Yep, Soward and company would provide an incredible story if they kept on winning to ultimately run that victorious lap on grand final day, um, night (sadly). I’d really like to see that.
But for now, what do the Roarers think of my wild suggestion? Can you invent a finals yarn or fairytale that will transcend them all?
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