McHunt
International Rep
Contributor
- Aug 25, 2018
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Storm football director Frank Ponissi gives his side of the Brodie Croft saga, immediately squashing rumours of a personality clash:
“That couldn’t be further from the truth. It wasn’t easy to agree to the release. We gave a lot of thought and consideration to it. We said ‘this bloke could come back and bite us on the arse’. We certainly said that. There was enormous pressure on him to replace Cooper and the way we play has a lot of pressure on the halfback. Anyone that was going to follow Cooper Cronk was going to have a big pair of shoes to fill. That was a fair bit of pressure on him at a young age."
“Coops left a year before we all thought he was going to leave. We thought 2019 would be when Crofty took over rather than 2018, but he got us to a grand final (2018) and played halfback. The bloke can play."
Never right for each other
“People forget he was dropped twice in 2018, which is big for your halfback, but had the character to come back and be our halfback for the finals series and play in a grand final. That tells you something about his character and why we’re alert. He is a competitive and determined little bugger. We had to make a decision between Crofty and Jahrome Hughes and they were nose-and-nose together. It wasn’t about us being unhappy with him."
“Halfback is a position where if the rest of your team isn’t going well, especially your forward pack, it puts a lot of pressure on you. We have no doubt he’ll be up for us tomorrow night and we expect him to play well. He is really well-liked and respected by us. It’s been difficult to see the criticism of him. He hasn’t been playing to his best ability, but the comments about him not being NRL standard are well off the mark. Even Cooper Cronk came out and supported him. He is just out of form but only one good game away from getting back into form. We just hope that’s next week.”
In a better place
Croft insists he split from notoriously needy Cameron Smith on good terms. All he ever wanted was to walk tall as an honest man, in the greatest city on Planet Earth:
“I don’t know what all those rumours have come from. I had a great relationship with all the boys there and that was the hardest thing about leaving Melbourne — was the mateships I made down there for four years. I moved away from my family to go down there. I created some tight bonds so I found it really hard to leave. When I reflect on my time at Melbourne, it was a rollercoaster I guess you could say, but it developed me as a player and person. Having Craig Bellamy as a coach, I learnt so much, so I wouldn’t change anything.”
McHunt
“That couldn’t be further from the truth. It wasn’t easy to agree to the release. We gave a lot of thought and consideration to it. We said ‘this bloke could come back and bite us on the arse’. We certainly said that. There was enormous pressure on him to replace Cooper and the way we play has a lot of pressure on the halfback. Anyone that was going to follow Cooper Cronk was going to have a big pair of shoes to fill. That was a fair bit of pressure on him at a young age."
“Coops left a year before we all thought he was going to leave. We thought 2019 would be when Crofty took over rather than 2018, but he got us to a grand final (2018) and played halfback. The bloke can play."
Never right for each other
“People forget he was dropped twice in 2018, which is big for your halfback, but had the character to come back and be our halfback for the finals series and play in a grand final. That tells you something about his character and why we’re alert. He is a competitive and determined little bugger. We had to make a decision between Crofty and Jahrome Hughes and they were nose-and-nose together. It wasn’t about us being unhappy with him."
“Halfback is a position where if the rest of your team isn’t going well, especially your forward pack, it puts a lot of pressure on you. We have no doubt he’ll be up for us tomorrow night and we expect him to play well. He is really well-liked and respected by us. It’s been difficult to see the criticism of him. He hasn’t been playing to his best ability, but the comments about him not being NRL standard are well off the mark. Even Cooper Cronk came out and supported him. He is just out of form but only one good game away from getting back into form. We just hope that’s next week.”
In a better place
Croft insists he split from notoriously needy Cameron Smith on good terms. All he ever wanted was to walk tall as an honest man, in the greatest city on Planet Earth:
“I don’t know what all those rumours have come from. I had a great relationship with all the boys there and that was the hardest thing about leaving Melbourne — was the mateships I made down there for four years. I moved away from my family to go down there. I created some tight bonds so I found it really hard to leave. When I reflect on my time at Melbourne, it was a rollercoaster I guess you could say, but it developed me as a player and person. Having Craig Bellamy as a coach, I learnt so much, so I wouldn’t change anything.”
McHunt
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) and arguably McGuire, they proved by and large to be average quality A graders at best, not ‘superstars’ hence why we’ve won nothing in the decade or so they largely comprised the team. 
