SAVE the best for last. Greg Inglis listened to that mantra, delivering what he admitted was his finest performance in the No.6 jersey as he led Melbourne to a premiership.

In these big games, the result is determined by moments of individual brilliance.

Standing head and shoulders above so many of his peers, not only when he walks but by the way he plays, Inglis seized the initiative with his left hand and landed the knockout blow with his right last night, owning the game and clutching the Clive Churchill Medal afterwards.

"This means the world to me," Inglis said of his medal win. "I wanted to take it upon myself to lift in this game. It is the best game I have ever had at five-eighth. I felt I had a lot to prove in that position."

His grand final performance marked a clear line in the class gap between Melbourne and Manly. When the Sea Eagles needed a man to take the ball and produce such moments, they were sadly lacking.

The Storm simply sent the ball Inglis's way and the five-eighth delivered. One-two.

Inglis scored two sensational tries and played a leading hand in the Storm's first to Anthony Quinn.

He gave a lovely ball to Quinn after running behind two decoy players, giving the winger an easy and open run to the line.

Inglis then showed his enormous strength in the 24th minute with his first try, running over the top of Manly back-rower Anthony Watmough and through halfback Matt Orford. Simply, he was unstoppable.

But it was his second try that stole the show, and will be remembered as one of the best individual four-pointers in a grand final. It came in the 56th minute after a bust by prop Brett White, who managed to offload it to a flying Inglis 60 metres from the try line.

With supreme confidence, Inglis went clear in his trademark long-striding style and had a moment to contemplate how to get around stand-in fullback Michael Robertson.

In a flash, he was sprinting around Robertson and then fended him off with his noted right hand before strolling in to score. "I haven't done that for quite a while, and to do that here, on the biggest stage of all, you couldn't ask for more," he said of the try.

"I knew my defence would be sweet because I worked hard all week on it. In the warm-up I had a smile on my face, I was getting excited. I was having fun out there."

Storm coach Craig Bellamy was proud of the way Inglis reacted to criticism of his worth at five-eighth, with many observers claiming throughout the year that he was not as effective in attack as he had been in previous years playing at fullback.

"He has been copping plenty [of criticism] too," Bellamy said. "Gee, he was tremendous tonight. And he was magnificent in defence in that first half."

Inglis admitted that a brutally honest rev up from teammates, who called for him to get more involved, sparked his performance.

In the final game of 2007, Inglis seems to have breathed life into the beginning of a stellar five-eighth career.