Former NRL judiciary member Darrell Williams is still haunted by the night he was part of the panel that rubbed Cameron Smith out of the 2008 grand final.
But he expects the three men that sit in judgment of Billy Slater on Tuesday night to make the same emotionless call and rub the Storm star out of the 2018 decider.
Williams says the rules around the shoulder charge have left the judiciary little wriggle room and they have little option but to uphold the charge.
“I hate to see a guy miss a grand final but the rules are written, everybody knows them, and you can’t let emotion get into it no matter what the game – grand finals, semi-finals, State of Origins,” the former premiership-winning Manly fullback told Sporting News.
“The intention of the rule is not for things like Billy Slater did - I don’t know why they needed to change it.
“This is a rule that has come back to hurt the game. It’s corrupt in the first place.
“But as the rule is written, but not really intended, Billy Slater’s got to go.”
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Williams did give the veteran Storm some glimmer of hope – if he can convince the judiciary his tackle was no different to Waqa Blake’s hit on David Fusitu’a in round 17.
“They can use a precedent to argue that this is the same type of scenario,” Williams said.
“They need to come up with a compelling argument that the tackle he was trying to perform wasn’t a shoulder tackle until the very last minute.”
Ten years have passed since Williams, Mick Vella and Royce Ayliffe made the extremely tough call to suspend Smith for a grapple tackle, ending the hooker’s chances of playing in that year’s decider.
Williams admits he took a long time to come to terms with his decision.
“I hated it. It cut me up for a while, all of us,” he said.
“I hated the fact I might run into this guy and have to look him in the eye.
“You are gutted. I am lucky enough to have played a grand final so I know what it would be like to get all the way there and not play.
“But I had to resign myself to the fact that I didn’t make the tackle and the rules are the rules.
“I thought ‘that’s what I’ve judged you on. You’ve presented your evidence and unfortunately you haven’t beaten the charge’.
“You have to take emotion out of it. That’s the way they will need to think (on Tuesday night).”