NRL: Courage against the odds

Despite his son's illness, Sam Perrett has been in great form. Photo / Getty Images

Sam Perrett thought things were bad last year.

His Sydney Roosters club collected the wooden spoon after a dreadful campaign that yielded only five wins in 24 games, but worse than that, they set a new low for off-field incidents.

Players spent time in the clink after getting caught up in a fight, others were charged with drink driving and Nate Myles defecated on the floor of a hotel corridor.

Even coach Brad Fittler was fined $10,000 (a self-imposed sanction) for his drunken escapade when he knocked on the door of a hotel guest dressed only in his shorts.

Perrett was embarrassed and told his team-mates what he thought of them.

This year, however, has seen a marked turnaround in the club's fortunes, but Perrett has been battling his own troubles with his newborn son undergoing open-heart surgery.

Sam jnr was born six weeks premature with the main arteries of his heart formed in the opposite position to where they should be. He needed surgery when just 10 days old and there were times when Perrett and wife Jemma wondered whether Sam jnr would make it.

"It was pretty bad," Perrett recently told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"We ended up spending two months in the hospital and there were a couple of big moments - three actually - where we thought, 'this isn't looking good'.

He was born with his arteries around the wrong way so instead of having one complete cycle throughout his body he had two separate cycles and only one side was getting oxygen, the other wasn't, so they had to cut him open, take the main arteries and swap them around.

"Then there are all the little vessels they had to swap around as well, which is the trickiest part because you are dealing with vessels that are tiny - like one millimetre wide. It is amazing stuff."

What is also amazing is the fact Perrett has been in career-best form for the Roosters. The 25-year-old even put in a man-of-the-match performance against the Storm the night before his son's operation. He flew back to Sydney on the first flight the following morning to be there.

"That was tough, but when you are in the hospital 24-7, it gets a bit morbid and it can do your head in a bit, so I found that getting out to go and do my training was really good for me," he said.

Perrett has formed a good combination with fellow Kiwi Shaun Kenny-Dowall on the Roosters' left edge. He has scored nine tries in 26 games this season, including doubles in his last two starts against the Panthers and Titans, and averaged more than 137m a game.

Few players are more consistent than Perrett, which may come down to the consistency in his life. He doesn't drink or smoke, is a Christian and lists Maxwell Maltz's 1960 work Psycho-Cybemetics, a self-help manual which asserts that by rebuilding your self-image you can bring success, among essential reading.

The Roosters have done a lot in 2010 to rebuild their own image. They have stayed largely scandal-free and are on a five-match unbeaten run which has catapulted them into their first grand final since they played four in five years from 2000 to 2004.

Few gave them much chance at the start of the season. The Australian TAB listed them at $26 outsiders, ahead of only the disastrous Cronulla Sharks.

The signings of Todd Carney and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves have been crucial, along with the return from injury of fullback Anthony Minichiello, but new coach Brian Smith has received most of the credit. Perrett knew after their first training session that they could claim the title.

"Every season you go in believing you can beat anyone, you have to otherwise there is no point playing the game," Perrett told AAP. "But I can honestly say with the players that came in like Todd Carney and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and having Mini [Anthony Minichiello] back and fully fit I thought we really could go all the way."