I've said it before and will say it again.
Having a successful NRL team in Melbourne, the heart of the AFL, is good for business ... not to mention bragging rights. Hence why in now 23 years in the NRL, Melbourne have never had to do any more than the absolute bare minimum when it comes to juniors from their own state and will continue to have Qld as their junior base for a long time to come.
Seriously, even with buying a few imports, if the Storm had to rely on Melbourne / Victoria for their juniors then they would barely ever make it out of the bottom 4, and that is not good for business. But after 23 years you would think they would have had at least some pathways in place to bring on more local juniors than the what, 2, 3, 4 they have had?
Melbourne were set up by the NRL (because remember, they actually started in 1998 so technically weren't a Super League team even though they were owned by News) to be successful right from the start. Ever since South Melbourne uprooted at the end of the 1981 VFL Season and landed at the SCG to become the Sydney Swans from 1982, the league had been desperate to get a foothold in Melbourne. Why do you think that so many Tests and Origins have been taken there since 1990 while until the past couple of years other centres that also had a team at one point, Perth and Adelaide, got virtually ignored other than just a sometimes annual, once a year club game? Why do you think the league didn't give two hoots if the Mariners or Reds or Adelaide Rams folded? Because the goal was always Melbourne ... but they had to be successful and they knew they never would be having to rely on local juniors or discards. And to that end, their first squad wasn't just discards from other clubs thrown together. Oh no, they not only got the pick of bunch from the disbanded Western Reds and Hunter Mariners, they also basically got given the pick of off-contract SL players, including Glenn Lazarus. And its gone on from there with their Qld junior base over the years landing them the likes of Smith, Slater, 1nglis, Folau, Cronk and Munster.
Not one of the players who have legitimately won premierships for the Melbourne Storm was either born in Victoria or came through the local system. In fact, the closest any of their premiership winners was born to the Victorian border was Dale Finucane who was born in Bega.
www.history.com
