The players who will decide the NRL final – in pictures

Michael Jennings, as they say, knows his way to the try-line, an important skill in a try-scorer, if he didn’t know he’d be particularly useless. But Jennings is not particularly useless; Jennings is particularly blinding piss-fast. Fast? Jennings has the true gas of those select few who scorch the earth. Steve Renouf had it. Tim Horan of the Wallabies had it. And former Panther man MJ has it. And if the Roosters’ right-side “D” shows him the sideline then Jennings will take it, the corner flag and a hot girl fan in Row AA. And he will take the Sea Eagles to Sad Town Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP Image

There’ll be types guffawing into their muggaccinos and spitting hard little flecks out of bacon sandwiches at the mention of Manly prop Brenton Lawrence among this claque of grand final influence-men. But the former Woden Valley Rams ram-man has grown into his skin, not unlike Wallabies bearded flanker Scott Fardy. Some dudes, aged 22, aren’t ready for first grade rugby league. But by the time they’re 28, they are. And Lawrence is. He’s had a decade on the weights bashing blokes in feeder footy. He’s ready. And if he can stop the hard charges of SBW, JWH and reborn Boyd Cordner, and charge up guts using his bulk and not inconsiderable pace, then Lawrence will be a factor in this year ending Big Dance. Can play Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP Image

In the game variously known as football, association football, futbol, soccer, The Beautiful Game and Kevin (not Kevin), there is a player sometimes known as the stopper. This player’s job is to hack at the shins of candy-faced forwards and kick the ball away should it come near him. In rugby league, a stopper performs a somewhat different role. In rugby league a stopper is a man who stands in the middle of the defensive line using bulk, manic aggression and a predilection to pain to literally stop the other team’s forward progress. And the Chooks have a very good exponent in Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, a man-beast who skates close to the line in terms of legality because it’s scary, and scary is good. And if he can get anywhere inside the heads of his opponents and trick them into thinking that running at him may cause serious injury, even death, then JWH has done his job. Stopper? Show stopper Photograph: Paul Miller/AAP Image

There’s a stat going about, and again I can’t remember where I heard it, read it or sucked it into my poor brain via mental osmosis, that when Brett Stewart plays for Manly Sea Eagles they win 80% of their games. When he does not play it is something like 60%. He is an Important Man. Perhaps not as important as the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is to Indonesia, but still quite important. Important? Nothing more important than tries, friend, and Stewart has scored 142 in 187 first grade and rep games Photograph: Grant Trouville/AAP Image

And so to his excellency, Sonny Bill Williams, the mobile hit-hound with the giant arms and preternatural skills, the bloke should be in Cirque Du Soleil throwing tiny gymnast people about in a weird gothic French reimagining of the fights scenes in Les Miserables. He is that good. Good? Friend, he is the best in the game at what he does. And given that is a bit of everything, he may just be the best player in the game. Williams can: charge hard at the line; offload while seemingly body-locked in a man-meat sandwich; set a speed-man free with a spiral ball wide; or put a man in a hole with a no-look flick. And he hits like a Greek recession Photograph: Renee McKay/AAP Image

Few years ago I wrote a yarn for Inside Sport about Kieran Foran, lauding the No6’s rock-and-roll style of rugby league. I wrote: ‘Daly Cherry-Evans, name like a banker from North Sydney, is a super-solid first-grade rugby league player. No mistakes, precision distribution. A fine spoke in well-oiled wheels. But it’s Kieran Foran who’s the gun.’ Which was wrong. Because Cherry-Evans is a gun, too. He’s a machine gun. He runs, he passes, he kicks. Joey Johns is teaching him these things. And the boy is listening. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP Image

Someone, I can’t remember who, one of the ubiquitous Expert Pundits whose expertise and punditry so clogs our manifold media in these modern times said this: “Mitchell Pearce is my tip for the Clive Churchill Medal”. So there you go. Make of it what you will. A nice tapioca pudding, perhaps, or a pearl necklace. Because for mine, should the Chooks win, Sonny Bill Williams will win the best-on-groung gong because the game is likely to be tight and he is really good in the tight, and the loose, and does heaps of top stuff. But Pearce does top stuff, too. And will drive his team around like a show-dog kelpie does a herd of really dumb but super-athletic Brahman bulls. But does Pearce have it in him to produce his best on this most massive of stages. Was his form that indifferent in State of Origin? And what of the two firecrackers and future champions in the six and seven for Manly? Can he tame them? Time, as it so predictably does, will tell Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AAP Image

Played golf with a great old man of rugby league once, fellah called Noel Kelly. More funny old yarns than Billy Connolly in 2032. Kangaroo Tourist in the late 50s and 60s, hooker in the Team of the Century, and one of the great knucklemen of a blood-knuckled age. And of all the modern players, Kelly singled out Glenn Stewart as a bloke who’d have gone alright in the old days. Tough, skilful, smart, he even looks like an old bloke with his balding melon and lack of dumb tatts. Stewart is a ripper, and the next forward after SBW that bookmakers reckon will take out the grand final top-man gong. Big factor Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP Image

Very smart and good player, James Maloney, and he’ll frighten the Sea Eagles with his nimble feet and tidy little skill-set. Maloney’s kicking game will be key. Whether he’s driving punts long, bombing high, grubbering for a drop-out, or bunting a punt for tall wingmen wide (Daniel Tupou a likely leaper), Maloney will frighten Geoff Toovey and his Manly Mafioso. Top player Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP Image

Jamie Lyon has been playing quality first grade rugby league since 2001. He knows how to play. His work on the right-side with Daly Cherry-Evans and winger Wolfman Williams has been arguably the competition’s most potent backline threesome. For mine Manly sports the game’s best backline period, and Lyon is the brilliant fulcrum of it, a superb link between outside backs and inside halves. He’s playing like he enjoys it and does very little wrong. Can score a try, set one up or save one. Game’s best centre. One of the best players period Photograph: Grant Trouville/AAP Image