IT IS being dubbed “State of Origin 4”, and this year’s NRL grand final has placed two of the game’s greatest warriors and fiercest rivals on yet another collision course for a major trophy.

Queensland captain Cameron Smith and NSW skipper Paul Gallen have been key combatants in an Origin feud stretching over a decade, and now their personal duel will extend to club football when Smith’s Melbourne Storm and Gallen’s Cronulla Sharks shoot it out for the NRL title.

Smith and fellow Queensland Origin stars Cooper Cronk and Will Chambers will trade in their Maroon for Melbourne’s purple, while Gallen will be joined by a host of Blues players including Andrew Fifita, Michael Ennis, Luke Lewis, James Maloney and Jack Bird for Cronulla.

The Sharks are famously aiming for a slice of history, with Cronulla yet to win a premiership despite joining the competition in 1967.

They won through to the grand final after a clinical 32-20 defeat of North Queensland in the preliminary final.

The Cowboys were hoping to become the first team since Brisbane in 1992-1993 to win back-to-back titles, but ultimately fatigue from a heavy finals workload took its toll.

The Cowboys flew to Melbourne in Week 1, where they were beaten. They next played in Townsville in a 90-minute epic against the Broncos, and then flew to Sydney for an engagement with the pumped-up Sharks.

The Cowboys looked out of gas as they turned in an uncharacteristically poor performance against the Sharks and crashed out of title contention.

Melbourne were at the other end of the fatigue scale, having beaten the Cowboys in Week 1 to earn a week’s rest, before disposing of the Raiders 14-12 at AAMI Park in the preliminary final.

The Raiders, one of the real surprise packets of the season, were their own worst enemies – coming up with crucial errors at critical times when the game was there for the taking.

As usual, Melbourne’s coolness under pressure and their stack of big-name players delivered at the right time to get them into another grand final.

They are now in the box seat to deliver a third premiership to Melbourne, after the club was stripped of its 2007 and 2009 titles for salary cap breaches.

For Cronulla though, there is the chance to be rid of one of the greatest title droughts in Australian sport.

The Sharks have finished runners-up three times – 1973, 1978 and 1997 (Super League) – and have won the minor premiership twice, in 1988 and 1999.

But never has a Cronulla captain lifted the premiership trophy.

What also should not be discounted is Cronulla’s efforts in rebuilding after the dark times of the past few years, where the club finished with the wooden spoon (2014), was on the brink of financial collapse, threatened with relocation, and saw a number of current and former players suspended for being embroiled in a performance enhancing drugs scandal.

They have now emerged out the other side, with Queenslanders Ben Barba, Valentine Holmes and Jayson Bukuya helping drive the Sharks’ drive to history.