Cooper Cronk: great halfback, sneaky operator

Once we have formed a view of a player it can be difficult to view them another way.

There are players who are always getting penalised and in trouble, so it becomes hard to see them as anything other than as miscreants.

Names like James Maloney, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Michael Ennis, Shaun Fensom, Mitchell Pearce, Josh Reynolds, Ryan James, James Segeyaro, Matt Ballin and Nate Myles come to mind.

These are some of the most penalised players of the last three seasons. They consistently get pinged by the refs for hold downs, hands in the play the ball, being offside, etc.

Eventually we expect to see them do it. We are watching for them to do it. Greg Bird is a very good footballer, but nowadays I’m watching him like a hawk for any niggle or foul play he might engage in. And I bet the referees are too. They would know who the players are that regularly push the rules as far as they’ll go.

Like I said last week of James Graham, once a player loses the benefit of the doubt with the referees because of regular transgressions, it comes back to bite their side at crucial moments when a 50/50 call goes against them.

This is compounded if the team is struggling. Speaking after a tough loss, in which incorrect refereeing decisions cost his side, then-coach of the Titans John Cartwright said that sometimes decisions went against you – or you didn’t get ones you should have – because your side was expected to lose.

Cartwright argued that less scrutiny was placed on just how your player lost that ball, whether the defence was actually offside, that your player was tackled in the air. Your lads were going to lose anyway so what does it matter?

And it’s true. Sometimes we expect to see something and we struggle to see it any other way.

The supporters of those clubs feel the rage of injustice in their chests. If your boys had just got the penalty for that blatant tackle on your fullback while he was in the air – instead of the ball coming loose, play-on being called, and a try being awarded under the posts to your opponents – maybe you wouldn’t have lost. Sure you lost by 20, but if you’d got the calls you should have it would have been different.

It is hard to envision Greg Inglis as a cheat. Why would he need to? He’s about as good as an athlete gets.

I certainly see it when Inglis gets held down, held back, tackled in the air, or stripped. And the refs can too. They are watching for it. But I reckon they can’t always see star players transgress. It seems to me that they get away with more than the ordinary player.

Last Sunday I watched as a superstar of our game engineered a victory for his side. Within his superb display there were two moments where he received what I reckon was the benefit of the doubt partly because of his status. In both cases he shouldn’t have.

In a match where his side was well challenged, Cooper Cronk made sure his side got the chocolates. There was a lot of talk pre-match that the Storm had a poor record without Billy Slater, but any close examination of those stats shows that in most of those games both Cameron Smith and Cronk were also missing.

Cronk was certainly not absent on Sunday.

In the last minute of the first half Sam Williams put up a pinpoint bomb for rookie Storm fullback Cameron Munster to sweat under, just two metres out from his goal-line. A flying Jarrod Croker had timed his run to perfection and – with his noted ability to contest high balls and score – was at the very least going to give Munster a strong aerial contest.

Enter Cronk. He made a beeline directly into Croker’s path and knocked him out of the contest, in as clear a penalty as you’ll ever see.

Croker screamed at referee Matt Checchin to act, but all that happened was a purple tide of Storm players race in to rough Croker up for deigning to push Cronk in frustration. No penalty was awarded, and the Raiders went in to halftime in front by 10 rather than 12 or possibly 16 if Croker had not been obstructed.

The other crucial moment was in the 48th minute, when Cronk moved quickly to the right and fired a bullet pass to Will Chambers, who performed an amazing flick pass for Mahe Fonua to score.

The flick on from Chambers had us all gasping in admiration. However, the replays clearly showed that Cronk’s pass to Chambers was forward by at least two metres and neither the touchie or the refs picked it up.

Have a look at it. It’s not sort of forward, it’s blatant.

Without both of those friendly calls – or non-calls – the Storm don’t win on Sunday and the Raiders are 12th, not 15th on the ladder. But everyone expects the Raiders to be down there, right? So what does it really matter? Sure Cronk probably took some liberties in taking out Croker, but it was only the Raiders and Cronk is a star!

I would like to see captains and coaches challenges introduced to counter such incidents. Give each side two challenges a game to make sure dodgy calls can be examined properly. If the challenge is vindicated you can use it again.

And don’t give me that crap about too much stop-start in the game. Video refs take hours over simple calls, and goal kickers take forever with their shots. What’s a little more time if it means that there is justice?

Further, let video refs rule on forward passes. It is ridiculous that they can’t, it is effectively an offside ruling.

I’m a Cronk fan, he is one hell of a great halfback. His kicking game and try assists are better than anyone’s bar Johnathan Thurston, and he is a superb general.

In defence you really see his professionalism stand out: over the last three seasons Maloney has missed 172 tackles at 3.5 a game, Thurston has missed 141 at three a game, and Cherry-Evans has missed 99 at two a game. In the same period Cronk has only missed 56 tackles at just over one a game.

He is a deadly serious competitor and he thinks a lot deeper than your standard footy player. Go have a look at his website and you will find the musings of one very focused dude.

While Sunday’s forward pass was unlikely to be deliberate, the block on Croker certainly was. The blocking of kick chasers has unfortunately become de rigueur because refs aren’t penalising it. So instead of seeing great aerial contests for bombs we get some kind of NFL blocking play. It’s total rubbish that Tony Archer should wipe out if he is interested in making the game a better spectacle.

But I guess it was hardly biting an opponent’s ear.

And it was just the Raiders after all.