"If anyone was going to do it, it would be Cooper," Storm coach Craig Bellamy smiles. "He's lived his life the way he wants and now he wants something different and he's willing to give something up for it. We're happy for him – and he's happy." Johnathan Thurston pulls the cord on his chainsaw laugh when you talk about his long-time Queensland and Kangaroos halves partner walking away from the game. For love. "That's him!" the injured Cowboys captain says. "He's not guided by what other people want him to be." Footballers are usually like sheep; all part of the one flock and rarely wandering off.

The game has many individuals but Cronk is like no other player we've ever seen. It's easy to dismiss something than understand it. That's why he's seen as "weird" and "strange" and "different". Others take an alternative view. "He's his own man," says Bellamy. That's why Cronk was furious when the story leaked in early March that he was thinking about retirement to be with Rushton, who is based in Sydney. It was his story to tell and now someone else had told it. Bellamy never gave it another thought. A month later, he received a text. Cronk wanted to catch up. The coach figured it was about footy but then Cronk told him about his plans, that he wanted to move to Sydney for love despite having one season remaining on his Storm deal. If he was to play again, it would be for a Sydney club.

Bellamy made some pointed observations but knew Cronk well enough to understand he couldn't be talked out of it. Players aren't always ruled by money. They'll often move or stay at clubs to be near family, especially those with young children. Thurston knocked back a huge offer from Penrith to re-sign with North Queensland for the sake of his young family. But I can't think of a footballer of Cronk's standing who has ended his career prematurely for love. Love match: Cooper Cronk with partner Tara Rushton. Credit:AAP Solomon Haumono walked out on the Bulldogs so he could flee to London with then-girlfriend Gabrielle "The Pleasure Machine" Richens, but that ended in tears, mostly poor old Sol's.

"I'll say this – and not being disrespectful to women – but usually when it comes to footy players and coaches, their families and partners go where they go," Bellamy says. "That's the stereotype. In this case, Cooper and Tara are doing it the other way. That probably says more about him, without saying anything. "He grew up with Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Ryan Hoffman … all those sorts of guys. They've all got married and had kids. Cooper never went along that line for whatever reason. "Tara's got a very successful career and she needs to be in a certain place to follow that career and he wants to be with her. It's not the norm in footy but it's pretty black and white to him. If you get to know Tara – and I know he wouldn't like me talking about her – you work out she's just a really lovely person." So often a footballer's personality is reflected in how he plays, especially halfbacks. Andrew Johns took huge risks on and off the field. Allan Langer liked to keep his game simple and has been the same in life. Ricky Stuart was and remains seething and passionate. He knows it no other way.

Cronk is widely described as "meticulous". Bellamy says he's "anal" about his preparation. He's loosened up in recent years but his discipline is legendary. On Wednesday, the Storm players had a 9am team meeting ahead of their final training session before flying to Sydney for Sunday's grand final against North Queensland. Cronk strolled in at 7.30am, plonked himself next to assistant coach Adam O'Brien in front of a computer and they started poring through video. "A couple of younger guys walked past our office while we were doing it," O'Brien says. "What type of example does that set for them? When your best players are your hardest workers, your club is blessed." Cronk suffered a tricky ankle injury on the eve of the first match of last year's Origin series and was considered no chance of playing. For the next 48 hours, he barely slept, regularly getting up in the middle of the night to do the necessary treatment to get on the field.

Queensland coach Kevin Walters was stunned when he did. "Any other player, they wouldn't have played," Walters told Bellamy. "He does the same thing for us all the time," said Bellamy, not the least surprised. Thurston finds humour in Cronk's obsessiveness. "Honestly, with his food, he does everything but bring out a set of scales to measure what he's eating," he laughs. "We would get shocked if we ever saw him eating a Magnum ice cream."

When Cronk first came to the Storm in 2005, they didn't know what he was. A centre? Back-rower? Hooker? Then one day, during a conditioning session on the field, he collapsed. The coach had been driving them hard this day – "Bellyaching" as they call it – but Cronk had been suffering from ulcers and hidden it from the coaching staff. Bellamy liked that. He liked that Cronk was a hard worker on the field. He also knew he was calm off it. First-choice halfback Matt Orford had signed with Manly. Had they found the replacement? Bellamy dispatched Cronk to Sydney's northern beaches to see Matthew Johns, who had been one of his assistants with the Country side earlier that year. Each Sunday night for the last six weeks of the season, Cronk would fly to Sydney, live and train with Johns, and then come back to Melbourne later in the week.

Johns liked what he saw. Cronk was strong through the hips; quick off the mark; intelligent and honest but willing to learn. "Can it work?" Bellamy asked Johns as the 2006 season approached. "I think it can," Johns replied. In the pre-season that followed, Bellamy told Cronk: "You're our halfback. It's yours to lose." Over the next four seasons, Cronk won premierships, played for Australia and was soon earmarked to take his place alongside Thurston in the Queensland side when Darren Lockyer retired.

And then, on Thursday, April 22, 2010, it all changed – for the Storm and, as many will tell you, Cronk. Bellamy had to break the news to his players that the NRL had uncovered systemic salary cap breaches and they had been stripped of everything: two premierships, minor premierships, prizemoney. Oh, and they wouldn't be allowed to play for competition points for the remainder of the season. Players and coaching staff walked around their headquarters at Princes Park that day like zombies, bumping into each other. Dozens of reporters and camera crews gathered at the gate outside. Cronk walked into the office of football director Frank Ponissi, Bellamy's eyes and ears. "What do we do now, Frank?" Cronk asked.

"I don't know," Ponissi said. The Storm had the next day off and were due to come back on Saturday for their captain's run. "We can't take tomorrow off," Cronk insisted. "We need a plan." At Cronk's insistence, senior players and staff met at the home of assistant coach Stephen Kearney. Bellamy said he would front the media on his own. Cronk wasn't having a bar of it. A day later, the entire playing group along with Bellamy walked across Princes Park to front the media pack on the other side. Defiant and united, it's an image many recall when they think of those chaotic times.

United front: Surrounded by all 22 players, Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy addresses the media after the Storm were penalised for cheating the salary cap in 2010. Credit:Paul Rovere In the weeks that followed, though, Cronk's demeanour changed again. Details emerged about a second set of books. The Storm's big names had two contracts but Cronk only had one, and a modest one at that. It wounded him. "Since the salary cap stuff, he's a lot more guarded," Thurston offers. "He just changed, really. It could be a defensive mechanism but something was different." We still don't know if Cronk is about to retire after the grand final. Even those who know him well don't know if he knows. "I'm real surprised next year isn't organised because he's always had everything under control," says Thurston, although others say Cronk has separate plans for separate decisions. Seriously.

If he does retire, he does so without any of us outside the bubble knowing who the hell he is. To most of us, he's a stranger. Cronk is famously private and, apart from the occasional Instagram image, Rushton is the same. Colleagues say they didn't know about their relationship until it was revealed in the gossip pages. I approached Rushton for this story through a third party but she politely declined. It might explain why Cronk is walking away for love: others in her position usually salivate at the idea of becoming the next "glamour couple". About the only time Cronk has talked publicly about his fiancee was in July this year when he did a glossy photo shoot for a News Corp magazine. Even then he divulged very little. No, what had the rugby league chitterati in a spin that day were the accompanying images of Cronk lazing back on a white leather chair in poo-brown knitted jumper, giving his best dead-cow-in-a-snowstorm look for the camera. In another image, he was dressed in white pants, shirt and jacket with upturned collar.

Asked about his style influences, Cronk said: "David Beckham is the first name that comes to mind." Some former players were all over it, doing what they do best: taking the absolute piss out of him on social media. It triggered memories of other Cronk moments from over the years, from his elaborate press conference to announce that he had re-signed with the Storm to his musings on his personal website Coopercronk.com (which is now closed down). "We're not gods and we're not super heroes," he once wrote. "Even Superman needed advice. Even blokes like me." Then there was his infamous interview in 2013 about kicking the series-winning field goal in the Origin decider the previous year. Cronk talked about "being in a state of grace in that particular moment" with "every sinew of his body coming together as a perfect whole".

Of the salary cap scandal, he said: "Sometimes it takes a small fire in your village to realise that your personal character at that moment in time is made of hay." At an all-in media conference the day that story appeared, I asked his captain, Cameron Smith, if he knew what village his halfback was referring to. "The less said about that the better," Smith said, quickly moving along the conversation. A few years ago, Melbourne players would tell you even they didn't really know much about who their teammate was. Now, they don't want to see him go but are not at all surprised that he's leaving. "It took him 10 years to be considered a 'great player'," Bellamy says. "That's all because of his preparation: he just doesn't compromise on it at all. Players can get sick of it after two or three years but he's been doing it for 12 years. I don't know where he's going, I just know he won't be playing for us."

Loading Just at the moment when Cronk has become the player he's always wanted to be, everything he's ever worked for, he's prepared to leave it all behind to be with another person. Now that is love.