It was early 2021 when one day, out of the blue, Paul Gallen's phone lit up with a number he was certainly not expecting.
It was his former sparring partner Will Chambers, the man who had verbally tormented Gallen during a series of fiery contests only a few years earlier.
Gallen, to be fair, had given as good as he got.
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Chambers had left the NRL in 2019 and headed to Japan for a sojourn in rugby, but the COVID pandemic forced him back to Australia and he felt his playing days weren't done.
He had an offer on the table to play for the Sharks, but wanted the blessing of Cronulla's only premiership winning captain before signing any papers.
"I had actually retired. He actually rang me to say 'mate do you mind if I come to the Sharks?' and I said 'mate I'm retired, do what you want to do'," Gallen revealed to Wide World of Sports ahead of Cronulla's clash with Melbourne on Friday night.
"He actually turned out to be not a bad fella. It's amazing what rugby league does."
Chambers played nine games for the Sharks in 2021 but his name is etched in the tale of a long-running feud between the two clubs that dates back more than two decades.
It isn't quite Russell Crowe's famed Book Of Feuds, that details the century-long stoush between the Roosters and Rabbitohs, but there's no doubting Cronulla and Melbourne has become one of the modern game's must-watch TV dramas.
The stink began in 1998, Melbourne's debut season, when Tawera Nikau left the Shire to join the new kids on the block, and helped the Storm to a surprise 26-18 win the first time they met.
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Four years later, inaugural Storm coach Chris Anderson – who had led the new team to a premiership in 1999 – quit his job in the Victorian capital and moved to Sydney's south, where his first act was to audaciously poach gun halfback Brett Kimmorley to play for the Sharks.
Kimmorley – who was the 1999 Clive Churchill medallist in the grand final – engineered a 30-24 victory against his former side in just his second game for Cronulla.
In 2008 the tensions reached boiling point when Sharks big man Ben Ross whacked Storm halfback Cooper Cronk with an elbow to the head, before Melbourne's Brett White stepped in and knocked Ross on his backside. Both forwards were sin binned, and later copped a collective 11-game suspension.
The Sharks won that game with a Kimmorley field goal.
Fast forward to 2016 and Gallen and Chambers were well and truly in the thick of it, baiting one another during a tense clash in the last round of the regular season.
Chambers referenced Cronulla's peptide scandal, Gallen retorted with jibes about Melbourne's infamous salary cap affair.
The Storm thrashed the Sharks 26-6 and, years later, Gallen recalled, "They had hammered us, they totally dominated us, verbally as well as physically".
But four weeks later, the two teams met again in the grand final and it was Cronulla who triumphed 14-12 to claim the club's first – and to date only – premiership.
"I think anyone who has played in a grand final has a bit of a feud," Gallen tells WWOS nine years on.
"For me personally, I haven't been there for seven or eight years now. But any teams who have played in a grand final, there is always that bit of tension there.
"It's always spoken about, and particularly being the Sharks' first ever premiership it's always going to be brought up who we played, so there is that rivalry there."
Kimmorley and Chambers aren't the only players to have crossed no-man's land.
Storm premiership players Dale Finucane and Nicho Hynes have jumped ship to Cronulla in recent years. Hynes will lead his Sharks onto AAMI Park in Friday night's preliminary final. Finucane has since retired.
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The Sharks tried to sign champion halfback Cooper Cronk in 2018, only for the gun No.7 to snub the bitter rivals and join the Roosters, with whom he won two premierships.
Gallen retired from the game in 2019 and isn't keen to draw comparisons between his 2016 premiership team and this one.
But even this year the brouhaha between the Storm and Sharks has been evident.
Chambers is gone but his heir apparent to the title of NRL's best sledger, Ronaldo Mulitalo, will undoubtedly be giving Melbourne a gobful.
The loud-mouthed winger went toe to toe with Storm fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen earlier this season and will no doubt be looking for the fleet-footed No.1 again.
"Ronaldo has a back and forth with someone every week, Ronny is one of the most competitive blokes I've seen," Gallen said.
"He doesn't take a backward step and he's happy to put himself out there, which I like.
"I think a lot of other guys like talking the talk but they don't back it up. He backs it up. And if he doesn't back it up he puts his hand up, which I think is pretty good. But more often than not he backs it up."
Gallen will be pacing the sideline on Friday night working for Nine, but cheering on his beloved Sharks.
He can't believe Cronulla is paying as much as $3 with bookmakers to win the game.
"The last few years I don't think there's been too much animosity between the two teams, I know they've always been good games," he said.
"They have always gone win-loss, win-loss, that's sort of the trend in the past three or four years. I'll be happy if the pattern goes win-loss given we lost the last one."
The last time they met? A 30-6 win to Melbourne in round 17.
Time will tell if Gallen's theory stacks up.
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