Spare a thought for Luke Brooks right now as he reels from the bombshell news that footy extends beyond round 27.
The 230-gamer will end the longest finals drought in NRL history when he takes the field for Manly’s elimination final against Canterbury.
It marks his first taste of finals footy after 11 years at the Wests Tigers, a club so unfamiliar with the concept it thinks ‘Finals’ is the last exams of year 12.
By finally breaking his duck, Brooks will avoid an ingnominous club of first-graders who finished lengthy careers with zero finals appearances which includes Chris Sandow, Cameron Blair, Michael Bolt and Shane Walker (no, not *that* Shane Walker).
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But how will the former Tiger handle finals since learning it’s not a conspiracy theory?
Here’s a six-point welcome pack to help the new guy for his first day on site.
To start off, Brooks needs to know the standard goes into overdrive.
Finals have always been a searing examination of skill and resolve- and that was just deciphering the old McIntyre System.
But these days, the pace, intensity and carry-on is like nothing he’d experienced at the Tigers, board meetings excluded.
That’s because the reward at the end is life-changing- and it’s not a Weber four-burner.
Unlike tied matches in the regular season, two five-minute periods are played. If scores remain level at completion, the game enters an unlimited period of Golden Point.
For the first time in his career, Brooks could literally be playing until Tuesday. But he shouldn’t worry with a quality leader in his side like Daly Cherry-Evans.
He’s the RLPA representative so he’ll definitely get his time-in-lieu.
The referees don’t penalise anything at finals time either, so forget about standing behind the 10m or being a square who always stands square.
Why?
Because referees are so terrified of making a mistake on the big stage they’d prefer to let errors run rife.
It’s kinda like Trump’s presidency – make so many horrific fauxes pas that the public give up because they can’t keep track.
It makes finals footy a free-for-all, at least until Ashley Klein pulls out the phone book and starts sin-binning everyone from A to Z.
Luke Brooks will play his first NRL final on Sunday afternoon. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)
Brooks also needs to prepare for a painfully heightened focus on injuries.
In fact, it’s almost as intense as Queensland Origin camp, except the injuries are real.
Whether via fitness tests, hyperbaric chambers or just widespread misuse of the term ‘syndesmosis’, he will see more players than ever door-stopped at non-descript suburban clinics while hobbling on crutches clutching scans.
He should also get ready to become an expert on Cameron Munster’s groin and not only because he just unexpectedly welcomed a third baby.
The judiciary is an ass at the best of times, but come finals time, Brooks is about to learn he could literally cannonball a referee while double-parked and still get it down to a grade-one charge.
However, just be mindful – he would need to establish mitigation.
For example, Billy Slater shoulder-charged a bloke in to the next suburb in 2018 and was exonerated after proving there were extenuating factors at play; i.e. he was about to play his final match and it was sentimental.
After 11 years at the Tigers, the only fairytale Brooks ever experienced was full-time.
But remember the 2009 Eels, the 2014 Bulldogs and the 2017 Cowboys? He’ll see underdog stories unfold frequently at this time of year.
However, much like the Warriors’ boilover win in week one of 2008, most of these premiership dreams are over before Michael Witt puts the ball down.
While a Cinderella run can be enabled by a range of factors (individual hot streak, Cronulla choking, what have you), most are ultimately derailed by physical factors (fatigue) or the Deep State (a Hand of Foran or seven-tackle conspiracy).
And if it *still* somehow survives past this point, it’s invariably ended clinically in a prelim (by Melbourne) or illegally in a grand final (by an asterix, see: 2009).
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