Played on with broken leg: Insane act of courage to rival Cronk

Cooper Cronk wasn’t the only Roosters star playing with a broken bone in the NRL grand final.

It has been revealed that star winger Blake Ferguson played the final 30 minutes of Sunday’s decider with a broken bone in his leg.

Ferguson arrived at a Roosters fan day on Monday morning in a moon boot and on crutches, following the Tri-colours’ 21-6 win.

“He’s broken his leg, his fubula. It was quite sore but then after the game the longer it went the sorer it got,” Roosters coach Trent Robinson told AAP.

“It went numb and that’s when they knew he broke it.”

Ferguson still managed to run for 155 metres on the night despite the nasty injury.

Cronk’s courage the ‘stuff of legend’

Perhaps Phil Gould summed it up best.

“It’s one of the best non-performances I’ve ever seen,” the two-time premiership-winning coach said of Cronk.

“He’s repaid every dollar they spent on him and every heartache that they went through to get him, with Mitchell Pearce being let go.”

Indeed, a one-armed Cronk showed there is no weight too heavy after inspiring the Sydney Roosters to a 21-6 grand final win over Melbourne.

The former Storm halfback defied what was later revealed to be a broken shoulder blade to justify the Roosters’ decision to lure Cronk to their club.

The victory also denied Billy Slater a fairytale premiership to end his career.

Instead, the night beloved to Cronk, who was limited to the role of traffic controller, while also leaving the 82,668 crowd in wonderment over his defensive nous.

He somehow failed to miss nine of his attempted tackles in a courageous effort that had Roosters coach Trent Robinson hailing his veteran post-game.

Asked if he had seen a braver performance, Robinson declared: “Never.

“I’ve seen guys get injured in games, but I haven’t seen a guy fracture his scapula, complete break through the scapula, play 60 minutes with it, and then have to deal with it all week, have four different lots of injections during the week.”

Robinson said he’d never seen a player mentally stronger than Cronk.

“It’s legend status in our game, that. And it’s not an understatement,” he said.

“And we got to witness it. Honestly, I was observing every day and to watch a man go through that was awesome.”

with AAP