All that aside, I’ve never seen so much dribble on behalf of the losing team! Melbourne have had their share of critics over the years, but at least (in most cases) their dominance has been recognised. Whether one agrees with the structured game, flat rucking, lack of spontaneity blah blah blah is all subjective … the bottom line is they’re in the business of winning premiership. And as anyone who has lost one will tell you, they’d rather win one ugly than lose one in any fashion. But alas, I digress: how about the NSW folk get off the Fitgerald bandwagon and acknowledge the Storm for what they are – a well drilled, well coached club (and I say club, because with personnel changes over the years i dont think its fair to refer to their era as a “team” effort) who have managed to do what it takes in the modern game to make grand finals – the only place from which one may win a premiership.

Yes, Parra had a rapid rise at the back end of the season; yes, Jarryd Hayne is a talented player; yes, hindmarsh & Cayless are footballing gods who probably deserved a premiership (as did El Masri!!) but were THEY really the success story of the year in the big picture. What of the Bulldogs rise from cellar dwellers to contenders; the Dragons rise under their deity Bennett; the emergence of manly when all thought they’d suffer premiership hangover; the ressurection of the Broncos after a record thrashing … etc etc.

The big news for me comes out of todays RLW – and a rumour the Storm may let Dallas johnson go!!! WTF?

Kudos to Storm for winning the premiership and sealing their place as a great team of their time; and commiserations to the Eels for getting close, but no cigar. Acknowledge the superstars of our game – but lets not dwell on things which one arguably see’s with one eye because of club allegiances (or otherwise). Put it in the been there, done that basket and lets simply look forward to season 2010.

Look not back int the past, but towards the future, you’ll spend the rest of your life there!!

In any case we do technically have a Rugby Union ‘Leagues’ here, it’s just that they remain city centric, with the largest being in Sydney. Australia is geographically too large for a national league without the proper funding and well thought out club-transcending team divisions given that it would compete directly with Rugby League and AFL. Moreover, a ‘League’ in Australia is not what, say the EPL (or whatever the local English vernacular for it is), is. They’re leagues with knockout competitions made up of the top half of each league tacked on to the end of it. It is like this in all our football codes, even the Super 14 involving South Africa and NZ.

Union in Australia is ultimately very dependent on the success of the wallabies and, to a lesser extent, the 4 (soon to be 5) Super 14/15 sides we have. We have roughly one 6th of the player numbers of England, so our success in that sport is quite remarkable in many ways. The same could be said of soccer here too I fancy, given that for so long it was derided as a game for girls. We’re doing quite well in that though too now, despite the relatively low quality of the competition here.

The poers that be probably feel that it would be a bit anti-climactic to award it to . . . ‘a loser’

I am afraid that I will continue to use Football to describe, er, Football.

Anyways, Football over here is the number one sport by 5000 million miles. The clubs have been around for 125 years or something, and Rugby League is very very very small.

It’s still quite funny, though, that you have a football league but not Rugby union league. Bizarre.

So I wouldn’t give Slater the points victory in this one, Hayne to wear the Green And Gold 1.

Exactly! – and Robbie ‘O’ won his in 1997 .. making him the FIRST; yet clearly not the last (or only one) to win the “Churchill” medal.

That said, as part of the Centenary Of League celebrations, the Clive Churchill Medal has been retrospectively awarded for man-of-the-match performances from season 1954, the first to feature mandatory grand finals. The first recipient from the 1954 season is the man for which the award was originally named, Clive Churchill.

Despite claims to the contrary at the time of the announcement of the retrospective medals that there had not been Man Of The Match awards for Grand Finals prior to 1986, this was not the case – there had been the Dave Brown Medal awarded at some stage, and, according the NSWRL’s official match day program, a new prize was awarded in 1971, with the winner named by reporters covering the game (the first was won by South Sydney’s Ron Coote). In 1972 the award went to Manly half back Dennis Ward, and the following year, to Manly’s Bob Fulton. The retrospective Clive Churchill Medals – either by coincidence or design – reflect those award winners.

In the replayed grand finals of 1977 and 1978, the award was based on efforts over the course of both games.

These retrospective awards saw 6 fullbacks cliam the gong: Churchill, Langlands, Johns, Simms, Schubert, & Eadie (twice)

ROTFLMFAO – hang on, werent Storm in the 18s, 20s and NRL Grand Finals? Sounds like pretty good development to me .. how many Parra juniors have come thru parra’s ranks from day dot? Get some facts before spruiking off – the Storms juniors are Melbourne based and Melbourne developed.

Who cares about a Leagues club – its a money grabber, nothing to do with the running of a football club, and as for supporter base – lets see Sydney clubs seperate each others supporters via seperate terminals at games between two Sydney based sides and see exactly who has what supporter base. Almost half of every Sydney clubs home ground supporter count belongs to the opposition .. Storms gate count would be 90% + die hard Storm supporters.

You seem to me to be a Fitgerald clone – an archaic dinosaur without a clue!!!

Onto the game, I agree the Storm were by far the better team as most people expected. It took the Eels one half of footy to get into the game and you can’t play catch up with Melbourne. The Eels kicking game was deplorable particularly in the first half, I don’t remember them getting any repeat sets from good kicking. Storm won the game when Inglis went uncontested for the high ball and scored untouched. I couldn’t believe the Eels didn’t contest this, Hayne should have gone for it, just poor play. At that stage it was 10-6 and game on, then GI scores, takes the crowd out of it and kills Eels momentum. The Eels did well to get back to 22-16 but ran out of time. Congrats to both teams for making the GF and the Storm for a great premiership win. How many Clubs could bounce back from a GF flogging the previous year and win it, amazing. As for MOM, I thought Slater was good but Inglis and Cronk were better and one of them should have won it. Slater acknowledged this in his speech.

Same base play to the move that Billy Slater scored off against the Broncs, slight variation, and it completely sucked the Eels in.

I remember when McQueen used the same thing with the Wallabies, when they had three tries over consecutive games, using the same base move, with three subtle variations, and it sucked the opposition in each time for a try.

It’s strange to say that because they have exciting players in Cronk, Smith, White, Inglis, and Slater but I believe it’s true.

Watching the game on Sunday it seemed like because Parramatta were hurt by the fact they had the potential to offload the ball so the ref doesn’t consider the tackle to be completed until much later.

Their boring style stops them getting compared to the great Broncos and Raiders teams of the recent past that their record would eclipse.

Great team and great achievements but most importantly great coach.

Won’t miss them if they are not in the grand final next year though.

I also have theory on why they seem to dominant the game. I have been watching their play closely trying to work it out and I have concluded that they are very good at cheating in the paly the ball area. It is very subtle and well coached – so good luck to them. What I have noticed is that when the Storm have the ball – players when they are tackled look to get to ground immediately on their stomachs so they get a quick play the ball. They therefore surrender but do not get called as surrender tackles by the refs. They therefore get much quicker play the balls which they exploit very well.

In defence they really concentrate on turning the oppostion on their backs – this is why they get a lot of chicken wing allegations. They also purposely entangle themselves with the tackled player. They get their arms wrapped up and caught up with the opposition. The refs seems to allow them extra time to untangle themselves from the tackled players and hence slower play the balls which are easier to defend. As I said – well coached and well drilled.

I am pretty sure he is a Rabbitohs fan hence the nickname Ray ‘Rabbits’ Warren.

Gould has never ever been impartial.

As for player of the match, Slater was good, but I was thinking while watching late in the second half that I might have gone for Adam Blair. It seemed like every time he got the ball he was slicing through the Parramatta defense and causing problems.