Melbourne half Brett Finch will step aside for Gareth Widdop to return if needed Brett Finch steps in for Gareth Widdop in the halves. MELBOURNE Storm veteran Brett Finch says he will have no issue if forced to step aside for pivot Gareth Widdop, who is on the verge of a remarkable comeback. The five-eighth is a chance to return to the field this weekend - two months after dislocating his hip. Widdop, 24, is making rapid progress and wants to cap off his Storm career with a second premiership. He will play for St George Illawarra next year. But his return will come at the expense of Finch, who is set to retire at the end of the season. "I came down here to play that back-up role and I feel I've done a good job the last few weeks with the club," Finch said. If Gaz does come back, that is just the way it goes. I'll still try and contribute to the club as much as I can. Storm football manager Frank Ponissi said the club was stunned by the speed of Widdop's recovery. "He's gone beyond the call of professionalism in getting himself back," he said. The Storm's Gareth Widdop puts on a huge step against Cronulla. (But) the medical staff are very reluctant to give any indication whether he can play again for the Storm in the upcoming weeks. They are quite conservative because they want to see after the first week of running how he comes back. Storm can bring Widdop back through the Queensland Cup this weekend after exploiting a loop hole in eligibility rules. Widdop was named on the Easts Tigers QRL team sheet on Sunday to qualify him for the finals despite not attending the match. QRL general manager Jamie O'Connor yesterday got in touch with Storm to assure the club it had no issue with what had transpired. "We checked everything, it was above board and within QRL regulations," Ponissi said. They 100 per cent knew about it and we have it in writing and verbally. Because the last thing we want to do is get Brisbane Easts in trouble, so we double and triple checked. We did it in full co-operation and understanding of both Easts and without a shadow of doubt the QRL. Ponissi said the decision to name Widdop was kept secret for good reason. "We just want to downplay Gareth's situation for the chance he may not actually come back," he said. We're not trying to hide what we did - we didn't want to create a media frenzy about him coming back and mislead the Brisbane public if they turned up thinking he was playing. Meanwhile Cronulla captain Paul Gallen is set to miss the final round of the season after being charged over a crusher tackle on North Queensland's Scott Bolton. Gallen is facing a one-game ban, with the match review committee slapping a grade one dangerous contact - unnecessary head/neck pressure charge on the lock. Loading and 38 carry-over points from his punch to the head of Queensland's Nate Myles in State of Origin II pushed the charge over the threshold for a one-game ban.