Is there a better week than grand final week?
Like so many others in Australia, I'm excited for what Sunday's decider can bring.
My head is telling me that it's the Sydney Roosters' match to lose. With two extra days rest and two huge wins, scoring plenty of wins to get here, they deserve their tag as title favourites.
While the Roosters were getting a 3-4 minute breather every time they scored, against defences that were putting up questionable resistance, their opponents have been involved in three bruising encounters, the last one navigated with a man less for over half of it.
While Newcastle Knights travelled the two hours to Sydney (twice) via Auckland, the Roosters didn't leave Sydney for two games before a solitary trip to Brisbane, to play at the stadium that is like a second home to so many thanks to Origin, Magic Round and the COVID years.
The Knights have also lost their influential hooker Phoenix Crossland to suspension, leaving a huge void in the middle of the park.
But this is Newcastle Knights we are talking about.
A Newcastle that turned out in force just to watch a training session this week. More than 12,000 Knights fans swamped the open training session at McDonald Jones Stadium on Wednesday. A crowd bigger than some teams get for matches.
Newcastle legends Andrew and Matthew Johns broke down in tears on live television after last week's win. By all accounts, this mirrored the passion of the whole community in the homes, pubs and clubs on the Hunter last Sunday.
Newcastle gets behind its football team like no other in the NRL.
And their team has done amazing things this year too. The wooden spooners last year are now 80 minutes away from football immortality.
People still talk in special terms about the Wests Tigers winning against all odds in 2005. A Knights win this weekend will rank alongside, if not usurp, that particular feat.
There is no pressure on Newcastle. They are playing with smiles on their faces, with an abundance of heart and passion and, most neutrals are hoping they complete the fairytale this Sunday.
Pressure does amazing things to sports people. The Roosters should win, but the Knights can. So, all the pressure is probably on the men from Bondi.
At worst, it can potentially cripple some players, coaches and teams. At best, if the Roosters are indeed feeling some of that pressure, their game will be a little more clunky than the last two weeks.
The simple truth of sport is that grand finals are always about winning. It doesn't matter how, just get the job done!
The Roosters and Knights will walk onto Accor Stadium on Sunday night with one objective; winning the 2026 NRL premiership.
But this particular grand final feels like it carries something more as there are legacy opportunities everywhere you look.
For some players and coaches, Sunday represents a chance to add another chapter to an already remarkable career. For others, it is an opportunity to complete a story that could scarcely have been scripted.
And for Newcastle, there is the chance to do something that has never been done before.
Let's start with the Roosters and their head coach Trent Robinson.
If the Roosters win, Robinson will become a four-time premiership-winning coach.
He has already taken the Roosters to three titles, in 2013, 2018 and 2019, and this will be his fourth Grand Final appearance in 14 seasons at the club.
A fourth would put him alongside Tim Sheens on four premierships.
Only Wayne Bennett, Craig Bellamy and Jack Gibson would have won more as coaches, so he could be in pretty extraordinary company by Sunday evening.
Robinson has already established himself as one of the defining coaches of the modern era, but another premiership would take the conversation somewhere else entirely.
There is also something particularly remarkable about the consistency. The Roosters have made the finals in 13 of Robinson's 14 seasons in charge.
That is not simply a coach who has had a couple of brilliant teams, it's sustained excellence.
You could argue he should have won more titles over that time, with the stars present in their roster, but those with a long memory will remember that people said the same things about Wayne Bennett when he led the star-studded Broncos.
On the field, there is Daly Cherry-Evan and there might not be a better Grand Final storyline anywhere in the game.
Cherry-Evans won a premiership with Manly in his first NRL season in 2011. Now, 15 years later, he is preparing to play his final NRL game.
And he will do it wearing the colours of the Roosters after making the remarkable decision to leave Manly following 15 seasons and more than 350 games on the Northern Beaches.
Imagine the symmetry if he could finish where he started. A premiership in his first season and a premiership in his last.
There is also, another piece to the Cherry-Evans story. He already owns a Clive Churchill Medal, having won the award in Manly's 2011 premiership triumph.
If he were to win it again on Sunday, he would become only the fourth player to win the medal twice.
Nathan Cleary became the third when he won his second in 2023, joining Billy Slater and Bradley Clyde. So Cherry-Evans has the opportunity to join an extraordinarily small group.
There is no guarantee that the 37-year-old will get the chance to make either of those dreams' reality, but that is what makes the Grand Final so compelling.
I can envision the likes of James Tedesco or Sam Walker getting that particular gong. They both have more X-factor in their games than DCE has at this stage of his career.
Then there is Mark Nawaqanitawase, the modern epitome of X Factor.
Sunday will be his final NRL game before he returns to rugby union. And what a way it would be for him to leave the game.
Nawaqanitawase has produced some extraordinary moments during his two seasons in rugby league and was instrumental in the Roosters' preliminary-final victory over the Dolphins, running for 329 metres and scoring twice.
He could walk away from the NRL as a premiership-winning player and not many players get the opportunity to leave one code having conquered it.
There is another piece of history waiting for the Roosters.
They conceded 50 points to South Sydney in Round 27, going down 50-20 at Allianz Stadium.
That put them into the so-called NRL 50-point curse.
No team in the modern era had previously won the premiership in a season in which it conceded 50 or more points in a match. If the Roosters win on Sunday, they will break that trend.
And then in opposition colours, there is Justin Holbrook. The Newcastle coach already knows what it feels like to win a Grand Final.
He coached St Helens to the 2019 Super League title, defeating Salford 23-6 at Old Trafford.
If he can now take Newcastle to an NRL premiership, he will have won the biggest domestic title in both hemispheres and that would put him into an extremely select coaching group.
The bigger Newcastle story, however, might be even more remarkable.
Twelve months ago the Knights finished with the wooden spoon. On Sunday night they will play for the premiership.
Newcastle finished seventh this season, winning 14 of their 24 regular-season matches before producing one of the great finals stories of recent times to beat Penrith and reach their first Grand Final since 2001.
If they win, they will become the first seventh-placed team to win the NRL premiership.
More remarkably, they would become the first team to go from the wooden spoon to the premiership in consecutive seasons.
The turnaround is difficult to comprehend and it says something about how quickly things can change in rugby league.
One more thing. Newcastle have never lost a grand final. They are the only top flight team to play in more than one and not lose! A Joey Johns inspired Knights became champions in the 1997 ARL competition and again in the NRL Grand Final of 2001.
On Sunday night, someone will lift the Provan-Summons Trophy.
But for a number of people and the clubs involved, what happens at Accor Stadium could define how they are remembered forever.
Lee Addison is a former club coach at Sea Eagles and Panthers and the founder of rugbyleaguecoach.com.au. He is a Coach Mentor and his programmes for coaches and clubs can be found HERE.
