$3.17 million over is hardly a Storm in a teacup

 
Steve Kaless Roar Guru

By , 16 Jul 2010 Steve Kaless is a Roar Guru

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StormgateSo the results are in, and the Storm are an eye watering $3.17 million over the salary cap over the last four seasons, with a prediction that they would be $1.3 million over next season.

It’s a massive 80 percent over what was expected, and it’s also instant vindication for the hardline David Gallop took when handing down the initial punishments.

Gallop received plenty of abuse from the usual quarters, and from those in Melbourne, who have perversely blamed him for the crisis and claimed that his actions were “killing the game.”

Those handing out the abuse will be silent now, and it will be Gallop who’ll be asked to clean up another mess he didn’t ask for.

He has started by reaffirming the code’s commitment to the club.

The independent directors of the Storm have been promptly frogmarched.

Given the scale of the breaches, and their resistance to accept the punishments handed down, it’s probably only right they formed an orderly queue at the exit door.

Of course, their departure does mean that the Storm’s plans to move away from News Ltd have returned to the square marked “1”.

News Ltd’s John Hartigan claimed that the independent directors were sacked as a sign of “good faith” before moving on to talk about the need for concessions for the NRL so that the team isn’t four superstars and a bunch of “pub players”.

I’m not so sure about that.

Up until now, the Storm have been pretty effective at getting the message into the media that there was every chance they’d be able to balance the books and keep Slater, Inglis, Cronk and Smith.

A plan was already being drawn up, with rookies like Gareth Widdop, Justin O’Neill and Matt Duffie joining journeymen like Bryan Norrie (not sure how much he appreciates being called a pub player) in a side with the stars.

Suddenly it seems that it’s not that simple, and that the NRL will need to help out.

After the months of abuse Gallop has copped from south of the Murray, I thought he showed real restraint in agreeing to “work with the club” on their issues.

You can bet your last dollar there will be plenty of resistance from other NRL clubs to the notion that a club who so systematically rorted the cap are now assisted to keep their players.

One of these issues facing Gallop is what knowledge the players had in all this.

That they refused to co-operate with the investigators is a bad look, a very bad look. Although it was some blokes from Deliotte not the AFP.

The Storm scandal has now also arrived in Bondi after Roosters recruitment manager Peter O’Sullivan was named as being knowingly involved in the affair. The Roosters’ reputation of abiding by the cap has never been great, and you wonder whether the club will want to have O’Sullivan involved in future player recruitment despite his reputation.

Imagine the furore if the Roosters had landed Josh Dugan and then a week later we find O’Sullivan in the middle of the Storm fiasco.

Probably, most importantly, everyone seems committed to righting wrongs and “moving forward” – a phrase which is certainly in danger of overuse in today’s society.

However, it’s easy to talk about moving forward. It’s another matter to do so when you’re asking people to give up large sums of money.

Watch this space.

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