Prop forwards don't win medals like the Clive Churchill for best player in a grand final, so don't expect to see Manly front-rower Brent Kite on the dais on Sunday evening. "They're just awards for halves," said Steve Roach.

Matt Orford - winner of this year's Dally M, another of "those" awards - has the (c) beside his name, but ask anyone in the Manly camp who is leading them into the fray this weekend and there is only one answer: K-Man.

It's a team game, but someone's got to go first and the player putting his hand up at Manly to take first hit-up from the kick-off when the opposition forwards are psyched to within an inch of the judiciary is Kite. With no thought of self-preservation, he charges into the fray, begging the defence to give it their best shot. When the Manly side is rocked on its heels by a great kick; bunched around the ruck; an easy target, who's calling for the ball? Kite again.

As his focus narrows during the next couple of days, events like that will find their way into Kite's waking thoughts as he starts visualising the game and his role in it. What he'll be thinking of are the key moments when his leadership can lift the side.

"You can have similar numbers [of tackles and metres] but still have a bigger impact on a game," he said. "There's moments when you're required and what I really try and do is be there in those moments and make a difference for my team."

Kite is a leader, without necessarily having an awful lot to say.

"I feel a responsibility to get the guys firing," he said "The No.1 role is to try and get the team going forward and defend the middle, and try and negate their front-rowers. I'm the sort of guy who tries to stay pretty positive on the field. I talk when I've got the energy, other times it's hands-on-knees. If I can lift the team, I'm always going to try - but I've found I'm most effective when I'm carting the ball out of our end rather than anything I might say."

If actions do speak louder than words, what about Kite's second-half effort to chase Orford's kick for 65 metres and then tackle Warriors fullback Wade McKinnon in the in-goal area to force a line drop out in Saturday's preliminary final?

"Everyone pumped up after that," said second-rower Glenn Hall. "I was on the sideline and I didn't know who it was, and then I saw this big K-Man jump up: I nearly pissed myself laughing.

"For someone like that, with the frame he's got -because he's a big human - to be running and throwing himself around like that, it just inspires you."

Kite, typically, was much more low-key in his description: "I thought my energy was a little bit down so I was just trying to get back into the game."

The better Kite plays, the harder it is to understand how he went from a starting job with the Australian side for the Centenary Test on May 9 to having six NSW props ranked in front of him for the Origin series that began 12 days later. The fact Storm coach Craig Bellamy was widely perceived to have exerted decisive influence over the Blues' line-up could prove his biggest selection blunder of the year. Kite was playing well before Origin; better ever since.

Manly forward Jason King admitted the snub had been a spur. "Maybe it's given him a little bit more motivation because he's kicked on since he's had those selection setbacks," he said.

King, like Hall would follow Kite through a brick wall, all the more easier to do given Kite had probably left a fair opening with his hit-up. "He's a gentle giant, a man of God - but he's definitely the man we follow into battle," Hall said. "He leads with his actions, K-Man."

Manly recruitment manager Noel Cleal also has great faith in Kite and appreciates the importance of a prop to lead the side - especially at this time of year. "When you look back in time, you see John O'Neill's input into South Sydney and the Roosters, Arthur Beetson, Kevin Ward in '87, Glenn Lazarus, Peter Kelly, Paul Dunn and, in later years, you look at Shane Webcke," Cleal recalled. "Your six and seven are your go-to blokes, but your front-rowers are the cornerstone of how you get there."

Former Tigers prop Steve Roach is another Kite fan.

"Brent Kite is a man of very few words who does a lot with his actions," he said. "I'm sure if you asked everyone in that team, he's the man they look to."

Orford had no qualms about admitting as much. "He just wants it. He didn't really need to chase that kick but he did and that's the kind of player he is. It was a massive play for us and that's inspirational when a front-rower can do that for you," he said.