Cooper Cronk sent to sin bin in grand final for professional foul

Cooper Cronk was always going to be the human headline of the grand final but not like this.

With the game in the balance and almost 50 minutes on the clock Cronk missed his assignment by a millisecond and it cost him 10 minutes of his last ever game.

With the Raiders hot on attack and a desperate defensive play required, Cronk made the right read, knowing Josh Papalii was set to receive a short ball.

Coming from the outside in, Cronk narrowly mistimed his tackle, hitting the Raiders big man just as he was about to catch the pass.

The ball was knocked on by Papalii and dribbled into the in goal.

Straight away the referees wanted to see it again, sending the play to be reviewed with a possible penalty try at stake.

With work still to be done even if Papalii caught the pass, the penalty try was turned down by the bunker but it still wasn't good news for the Roosters, with Cronk sin binned.

True to his character Cronk yelled some instructions to his teammates and ran from the field as his captain Boyd Cordner blew up at referee Ben Cummins.

Cummins: "It's a professional foul."

Cordner: "It's not a professional foul. How is it but?! How do you know he was going to score?"

Cummins: "It's been reviewed, we went upstairs, it's a professional foul."

Cordner had support in Nine's commentary box with both Phil Gould and Andrew Johns disagreeing with the call.

Gould: "Wow ... It's really harsh. It's the kind of call that can change the game though … That is an extremely tough decision."

Johns: "Yeah I'm with you Gus, it's not a sin bin."

However, the officials got some support from an unlikely source in sideline eye Brad Fittler, a passionate ex-Roosters skipper.

Fittler said the referees had to consider what would have happened had Papalii been allowed to catch the pass unhindered.

One of the most powerful ball carriers in the NRL, he would have liked his chances of bulldozing his way to the line.

The Raiders took the two points to level the scores at 8-all and battered the Roosters' defensive line for the next 10 minutes.

However, showing the courage that Cronk famously showed just by taking the field in last year's decider, the Roosters refused to yield, holding the score to 8-all when the champion halfback returned to the field.