IT was a spine-tingling performance. And the reason is that Melbourne lost their own spine but were still able to prosper and progress.

The most important part of any side is its spine; the key positions of hooker, halfback, five-eighth and fullback. Melbourne have the best in the NRL, hence their dominance of the competition for nigh on three seasons.

And the most important part of that particular spine was Cam Smith, the organising organism who is the incumbent Australian captain, suspended this week for rearranging someone else's vertebrae.

The loss of Smith was meant to leave the Storm spineless, and really, it could easily have done so. But it did not. And for that, the Storm should be applauded.

Save the biggest cheer for halfback Cooper Cronk, because he was the significant other that allowed Melbourne to progress to the grand final without their most important player.

With Smith watching from the sidelines in a Storm fleece, Cronk cranked it up to a level he had not displayed before, providing a significant hand in two of Melbourne's tries and a foot for a third (their first, showing fleet of said foot first, and then devastating accuracy to find winger Steve Turner with a pin-point kick).

Having taken the captain's armband from Smith, Cronk had also taken the most important player badge as well. He barked in typical high-pitched and high-intensity fashion and he sparked the Storm in inspirational fashion.

He was not alone, mind you. To continue the spine theme, the forwards showed their own backbone to keep Cronulla scoreless for the entire fixture.

And we all must have fallen for the three-player trick. The Storm might have lost Smith, Jeremy Smith and Ryan Hoffman, but they still had eight current Origin players in their starting line-up. Compare that to the Sharks' solitary representative, Paul Gallen.

While the Storm had won just a single game without Smith this year - against, ahem, Halifax - they had not played a finals game without him, when the big players lift to big places. Their team is full of them.

And while potentially devastating, the loss of Smith had not caught Melbourne completely on the hop. Coach Craig Bellamy had been training his team with Russell Aitken, his somewhat surprising choice as Smith's replacement, at dummy half since Tuesday - more than 24 hours before Smith was suspended at the NRL judiciary. A case of forward thinking for life without their most important forward.

Still, they were a touch off their game early on, and understandably so. Aitken, who had played just eight games this season, and Turner found themselves in a muddle and the replacement rake later knocked on from dummy half.

It was the Sharks looking even more confused that allowed the cracks in the Melbourne side to be covered over with something more significant than paper.

Indeed, it was another absentee that was having far more of an impact on this contest, even if it had only a fraction of the newspaper print.

Brett Seymour's absence forced the Sharks to blood Blake Green in finals footy. He has played less football than Aitken, and it showed in the early stages.

Cronk split the five-eighth and Green's skipper Gallen - hampered by a thigh injury for a fortnight and thus not running absolutely freely - for Turner's, and the side's, first try.

Green looked green. And even greener after two errors. He regained some confidence when his hit forced the ball from Michael Crocker's grasp.

But Melbourne sent their men at him relentlessly, and successfully, when Cronk's sublime ball for Israel Folau put him one-on-one with Green just a few metres out. Green, at 22, has almost three years on Folau, but the Melbourne player, conversely, has 44 more NRL games on his rival. Green had no chance.

It was no surprise both were made to work in the first half. By half-time, Aitken had made 22 tackles, second only to Dallas Johnson, while Aitken made 19.

What did surprise was Melbourne's ability to put the result in the can without Cam Smith by that very stage. A surprise to anyone outside Bellamy's immediate family, anyway. Or Cronk's.