We've just had a smoko break where the newspaper headline Cronk 'legend' in Roosters win was discussed.

Once upon a time the team would have agreed with every comment written (below) and there would have been posters of Cronk on the noticeboard faster than you could say 'thank goodness league season is over'.

But today the overwhelming commentary was various versions of 'what a [dick]'. A couple of the guys were also quick to point out that had that happened in New Zealand under Health and Safety legislation the whole team should have been fined.... and they weren't being sarcastic, just genuinely stunned at the actions of the whole team at letting the guy go on the field with that injury.

Interesting listening and a pretty cool reflection on how far we've come.

:grin:

"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."

Robinson revealed the club intentionally chose not to disclose the exact nature of his fractured scapula, instead opting to say he had a severe rotator cuff injury.

The entire playing group knew of the issue the Sunday after their preliminary final.

"We were really honest: not with you guys [the media], but the players," he said.

"We knew that the rotator cuff was good for us to have.

"If we said it was a fractured scapula, it was pretty obvious that he either wasn't going to play and it wasn't gradings, whereas the rotator cuff was a certain range.

"So we said, 'We're going to say it's a rotator cuff so people don't know, but this is exactly what's happened to Cooper and this is what it's going to take."