Seventy-six minutes are gone in the 1999 Grand Final with 107,999 fans on their feet. Melbourne Storm halfback Brett Kimmorley goes at the line, takes the collision and offloads a ball to lock Tawera Nikau who plays the ball the one metre from the St. George Illawarra Dragons line.

Robbie Ross goes into dummy-half and looks out, he sees Kimmorley. From the right wing, Craig Smith is bouncing on his toes, waiting. Ross snaps the pass back to the young halfback who shapes to his right before placing a cross-field kick into the south-western corner of the Olympic stadium.

Scampering through looking back up at the incoming ball will be the final moments Smith remembers of the grand final. He’s about to be knocked unconscious by a Jamie Ainscough swinging arm.

The Dragons, desperately trying to hold onto an 18-14 loss, are infield. There’s at least ten metres between the last Dragons defender and Smith. Ainscough and his teammates know it and turn as quickly as they can.

But it’s too late.

The kick is perfect and Smith gets to the ball a split second before Ainscough who knows he’s been beaten. In a naturally human football reaction, Ainscough then plays the man.

Problem is the ball is in Smith’s hands.

Smith is out cold and drops the ball.

Chaos ensues.

Channel Nine’s Ray Warren gave credit for the toughest of grand final decisions to on-field referee Bill Harrigan despite it being Chris Ward in the box upstairs looking at replays.

“Bill Harrigan is about to make one of the biggest calls that’s ever been made in 100 years of rugby league.”

Storm captain Glenn Lazarus and Dragons hooker Nathan Brown stand side-by-side, hands on hips, mesmerised by the big screen replays. Lazarus keeps close to referee Harrigan and eventually comes back to his team with good news.

A decision made.

TRY!

Ainscough and the rest of the Dragons were in shock. Not because the wrong decision had been made but because they were just starting to realise that after dominating the game, they had lost it under the most remarkable circumstances.

Millions of people had witnessed history yet the man at the centre of it all, in what would be the biggest moment of his career, was snoring in the Olympic stadium turf.

Earlier Dragons five-eight Anthony Mundine dropped the ball over the try line which would have most definitely handed the Saints victory.

This was the Dragons grand final to lose.

But what about Smith?

In 1998 he was the club’s top point scorer. In 1999 he wasn’t seen until the playoffs. Smith played three games that season and they just so happened to be the biggest games in the young history of the Storm club.

So where are they now?

Captain Lazarus retired with six premierships at three different clubs and would later become a senator.

Harrigan is part of the Triple M commentary team and regarded as the greatest referee in the history of the game while Kimmorley would go on to become a mainstay of Australian and New South Wales sides in a career spanning sixteen seasons.

The man who could have sealed the win, Mundine, quit the game to pursue a boxing career and quickly became arguably Australia’s finest fighter.

Three years on, Ainscough won the 2002 Challenge Cup with Wigan.

Ward went on to become a mainstay of NRL officialdom.

And Smith?

He refused a contract for 2000 and never played footy again.

@woodward_curtis