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It’s all about creating a dynasty. For reasons that lie deep within my sub-conscious (the underdog status of being the son of a fish-and chip shop owner, perhaps?), I’ve always loved sports dynasties and sportsmen who have been unrivalled for years in their particular sport.
This the reason, presumably, why I’ll stop watching one of the golf major tournaments when Tiger Woods is out of contention of winning it. Or why I won’t watch a tennis final if Roger Federer isn’t playing in it.
Or why I’m like a little kid when Ricky Ponting is batting, counting virtually every run until he reaches his average score in Tests of just over 50. Sachin Tendulkar gets the same treatment, too, for the same reasons.
This brings me in, a roundabout way, to expressing the hope that the Storm win the NRL grand final against Manly.
Despite Roy Masters condemning all Manly sides to a ‘silvertail’ abyss, this current Des Hasler coached side is a team of honest battlers, with no player of genius in its ranks. Manly, the team, plays with exactly the same boring pragmatism and honest endeavour that its coach displayed throughout his own splendid career.
But great competitions like the NRL premiership shouldn’t be won by teams of journeymen players.
The Storm have lost their inspirational captain, and arguably the best rugby league player currently going around, for stupidly indulging in a grapple tackle when he knew that the NRL was bound to try and put a stop to it.
I’ve railed against the grapple tackle for a couple of years now, arguing that it is only a matter of time before someone is permanently injured and the NRL faces a massive compensation case.
But aside from the inexcusable villiany of the grapple tackle, the Storm are a team that deserve high praise for carrying the flag of the league code in bleak, unfriendly (to other winter sports) Melbourne.
It is a team, too, that plays with sweeping back movements featuring three of the most dazzling outside backs in the modern game – Billy Slater, Israel Folau and Greg Inglis.
These three stars alone transcend the mundane play of their opponents and provide us, the spectators, with glimpses of how league was played in the golden era of the St George dynasty, with its Reg Gasnier, Graeme Langlands, and all the other stars.
It’s safe to say that even if league is played for another 100 years or more, no team will ever rack up the record of that immortal sequence of grand finals victories of the St George club in the 1960s.
But I’m hoping that the Storm will create a dynasty by winning on Saturday that is more atuned to a league code with six tackles rather than unlimited tackles and a salary cap imposition that is designed to stop the creation of dynasties.
For these reasons, because the Storm are refusing to be broken by an NRL-imposed mediocrity, I want them to defeat Manly and lift the standard for all the other teams to aspire to.