By Wayne Heming
Sunday night’s grand final extravaganza featuring 2023 standouts Penrith (1st) and Brisbane (2nd) promises to be one of the most exciting climaxes to an NRL season in many years.
The anticipation has been building for the past two months with Penrith eyeing off a rare premiership three-peat and Brisbane threatening to break a premiership drought stretching back 17 years and including the club’s first-ever wooden spoon in 2020.
This year’s grand final (6.30 pm Queensland time) at a sold-out, 83,000-seat Accor Stadium, has all the ingredients to be a classic blockbuster — a grand final for the ages.
Both clubs have their superstars, game-breakers, match-winners and clutch players who can and will, pull off the near impossible.
Brisbane will field five members of Queensland’s victorious State of Origin series in coach Kevin Walters’s (FOG#63) Broncos line-up — six if you include Payne Haas, who turned out for NSW.
Centre Kotoni Staggs and halfback Adam Reynolds have also appeared in Origin games for NSW giving the Broncos eight players with a combined 48 Origin games.
Penrith have six players who featured in in this year’s 2-1 series loss with a combined 56 games in total.
Both coaches have stuck to the same 17-man squads that won through to the grand final last weekend.
To say this grand final is a promoter’s dream is an understatement.
The clashes across the field are simply mouth-watering to any rugby league fan.
From the looming torrid front-row battle between Brisbane’s Payne Haas and Thomas Flegler and Panther’s hard men, Moses Leota and James Fisher-Harris, right through to the sheer brilliance of rival fullbacks, Dylan Edwards and Reece Walsh, the class on show on Sunday is undeniable.
And, it doesn’t get any better than the battle of the little men in the halves where a youthful Nathan Cleary and the old fox, Adam Reynolds, will be scheming for every single metre and fighting for field position all night with their masterful passing and kicking games.
Whichever side wins, one of the storylines will be how a coach and his son – either Ivan and Nathan Cleary or Kevin and Billy Walters — combined to win the grand final.
Ivan and Nathan have achieved the family double for the last two years.
The question is. can they create more history, or does the title go to the Walters family?
Another sidelight is that either Penrith centre Stephen Crichton or Brisbane’s Kotoni Staggs will be able to claim the rare honour of having won a grand final in their 100th NRL game.
Penrith play a patient, controlled game behind Cleary and they never beat themselves.
Brisbane on the other hand is a team laced with strike across the park and they play more of a risk and reward style which has always been their DNA.
But like all big games, the hard work and the platform for victory will be done in the middle before the stars can shine.
Referee, Adam Gee, has been handed his first grand final with experienced whistle-blowers Ashley Klein and Gerard Sutton, both paying the price for a few finals howlers.
Sutton however will run one of the lines as a touch judge while Klein will be in the Bunker reviewing decisions.
Here are the 11 Origin players who took part in the 2023 interstate series.
BRISBANE BRONCOS
REECE WALSH (2 games for Qld 2023)
KOTONI STAGGS (1 game for NSW 2022)
SELWYN COBBO (4 games for Qld 2022-23)
ADAM REYNOLDS (2 games for NSW 2016)
THOMAS FLEGLER (3 games for Qld 2021-23)
PAYNE HAAS (11 games for NSW 2019-23)
KURT CAPEWELL (9 games 2 tries for Qld 2021-22)
PATRICK CARRIGAN (6 games for Qld 2022-23)
5 Origin representatives from the 2023 series win.
8 overall, including Reynolds and Kotoni Staggs, with 48 Origin games experience.
PENRITH PANTHERS
BRIAN TO’O (9 games 4 tries for NSW 2021-23)
STEPHEN CRICHTON (6 games 1 try for NSW 2022-23)
JAROME LUAI (7 games 2 tries for NSW 2021-23)
NATHAN CLEARY (14 games 2 tries for NSW 2018-2023)
LIAN MARTIN (9 games 1 try for NSW 2021-23)
ISAAH YEO (11 games for NSW 2020-23)
6 Origin representatives from the 2023 series with 56 Origin games experience.
TEAM LISTS
1- Fullback: Dylan Edwards
2- Wing: Sunia Turuva
3- Centre: Izack Tago
4- Centre: Stephen Crichton
5- Winger: Brian To’o
6- Five-eighth: Jerome Luai
7- Halfback: Nathan Cleary
8- Prop: Moses Leota
9- Hooker: Mitch Kenny
10- Prop: James Fisher-Harris
11- 2nd row: Scott Sorensen
12- 2nd row Liam Martin
13- Lock: Isaah Yeo
Bench:
14- Jack Cogger
15- Lindsay Smith
16- Spencer Leniu
17- Luke Garter
Emergency:
18- Tyrone Peachey
Coach: Ivan Cleary
1- Fullback: Reece Walsh
2- Wing: Jesse Arthars
3- Centre: Kotoni Staggs
4- Centre: Herbie Farnworth
5- Wing: Selwyn Cobbo
6- Five-eighth: Ezra Mam
7- Halfback: Adam Reynolds
8- Prop: Thomas Flegler
9- Hooker: Billy Walters
10- Prop: Payne Haas
11- 2nd row: Kurt Capewell
12- 2nd row: Jordan Riki
13- Prop: Patrick Carrigan
Bench:
14- Tyson Smoothy
15- Brandan Paikura
16- Kobe Hetherington
17- Keenan Palasia
Emergency:
18- Corey Oates
Coach: Kevin Walters
Officials:
Referee: Adam Gee
Touch Judges: Chris Sutton, Dave Munro
Bunker Review Advisor: Ashley Klein.
Kick-off: 7.30 pm (6.30 pm Queensland time)
