OK, lest I be accused of sour grapes: the storm totally dominated us and deserved their victory last night. But....... They are a sham team dreamt up over a long corporate lunch as part of a news limited strategic marketing plan and imposed like a carbuncle on the ass of the NRL. That they then went on to fundamentally change rugby league into a game of percentages, ruck domination and crab like one dimensional structures just adds insult to injury. The storm don't so much outplay you as wear you down and choke you. Despite all their success they muster almost no interest in their city and will probably fold once Bellamy and the big three from queensland leave. The grand final will be a typical Storm occasion - a whole lot of opposition fans, no storm fans, a lousy atmosphere and probably another premiership for a city that doesnt give a s**t and holds the NRL in contempt.
My issue with the The Storm is this. They may, and probably are NOT cheating at present, but that's the stigma that is attached to them. Instead of thinking, "wow, that team really out-played us", all I could think was, "I wonder how, and by how much they are cheating again this season". They cheated for how many years and got away with it? They were punished for one year, then are back toking it out in a GF a year or two later. Does the punishment then suit the crime? They should have had to scrape back slowly, and I have always stated, that the amounts they over paid their players, should have been deducted from their salary cap for the same amount of years. Would they have squandered? Yeah. BUT, Bellamy is one class coach. They'll play The Bulldogs. I am not surprised in the least, that the two best NRL coaches have been facing off with each other so much over the past 1/2 a decade. With our roster, we should be in The Storm's position. Given an experienced coach, I believe we should have been there.
A crowd of 25k was a lot more than the Manly Cowboys game last week, they Storm scoring 40 points was probably entertaining to their fans at least.
It will be a real shame if Storm win this year because they don't deserve to. They should not have been allowed to recover so quickly after cheating the cap. It's especially insulting after the arrogance of their players and coach, still calling themselves 2007 and 2009 premiers. They continue to spit in the face of all other teams who were deprived of a chance to win the premiership in those years. In my opinion any team caught rorting the cap should be forced to disband their team and coaching staff and rebuild from scratch. I don't believe for a second that they had no knowledge of the rorts.
Mate, the players signed TWO contracts, including Slater when quizzed on it. What's that tell you. Then the NRL poster boy image him. I won't go into the character assassination the NRL did to our favorite (non cheating) sons. Guess that happens if your a News Limited based team...who I ALSO believe had knowledge of what was happening. I mean, those pricks WERE the one's actually paying them, yet apparently, they can't or didn't count to 4,000,000.
Yeah, Ihate the Storm because of the cheating, but at least they were made to shed players. Whereas the Dogs cheated in 2002, and with the same team, and the addition of Andrew Ryan, they were able to win in 2004, all because the players accepted a pay cut, can you imagine what would have happened if it was Manly?
Carbuncle..." An infection larger than a boil and with several openings for discharge of pus"... yep, that's the storm alright!
