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Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy overseeas a training session in Melbourne. AAP Image/Julian Smith
Yes, I know. Another article about the Storm and their salary cap breaches. But with Origin once again looking like a forgone conclusion and club games taking a backseat to it regardless, what else is there to write about?
After witnessing the behaviour of players and fans in the fiery Raiders vs Storm match at Canberra Stadium on Saturday night, it looks as though there’s a groundswell of resentment building toward the Storm on all levels.
When the story first broke, it seemed most people were willing to give the players the benefit of the doubt in something that was clearly masterminded and maintained by administration, but it seems the scales are starting to swing the other way, and the responsibility for it rests on the Storm themselves and the way they’ve responded to this whole saga.
I can understand that in the initial stages the entire Storm club would have felt hurt by the decision and at odds with those who made it, so I can forgive the first reaction of wanting to point the finger elsewhere – but at what point do the Storm players and administration start looking at themselves?
Aside from dumping Matt Hanson and another “senior official”, there’s been precious little introspection from the Storm.
We’ve seen the players criticise the salary cap, the directors launch legal action against the NRL, more than a few fingers pointed at former CEO Brian Waldron and recruitment manager Peter O’Sullivan, and even a contigent of fans sticking it to David Gallop with “FCUK GALLOP” T-Shirts and petitions calling for the NRL head to resign.
There’s a lot of mud being slung from the Storm to anyone outside of the club, and a developing siege mentality that it’s “us vs them”.
For those of us that support other clubs, it’s pretty hard to feel sympathetic toward this sort of behaviour. Especially for those of us that have seen this same attitude throughout the Storm’s short history – like the show of support when Rodney Howe was banned *from the sport* after returning a positive drug test.
To an outsider it all seems indicative of a toxic, win-at-all-costs culture permeating the club at every level, from administrators to players to fans, and in the face of what has been toted as Rugby League’s greatest scandal, the Melbourne Storm need to take a step back and think about what it means to project the same attitude in this dark hour.
The crucial point here is that the Storm have not put forward any kind of public statement that even *entertains* the notion that this might run deeper than the half-dozen names that have been put forward and shamed.
In continuing to present a unified front defending all within their ranks, they’re going to tar the entire club and everyone involved with the same brush as any remaining rats.
Other clubs in the league have set tough precedents with players involved in illegal activity, in most cases adopting the stance that while the individuals in question are innocent until proven guilty, they are stood down, pending investigation as a gesture of goodwill in a sport that is sick of negative publicity. In some cases, such as Danny Wicks and Chris Houston, the players themselves have shown the character to resign for the good of the Newcastle Knights club and their mates.
So why haven’t we even heard rumblings of the Storm doing something similar?
We’ve heard players proclaim they’ll gladly take pay cuts in the hope of competing for the 2010 premiership, fans petitioning the NRL to let the Storm earn points if they sit out enough players each week to bring the team back under the cap, but where are the players showing the moral fibre to put their hand up and say “my contract was identified as one of the contracts in breach, so I’m standing down for the good of the club?”
Where are the offers from the clubs administration to sit out all players under suspicion pending the completion of the investigation in a bid to earn points in 2010, or even just make the club name look like less than mud.
The precedent has been set by nearly all other teams to put the game and the club ahead of player indiscretions, and by failing to do so, the Storm are just looking dirtier and dirtier by the day.
Even if they aren’t willing to make that bold step, there are other ways they could show some humility. If the playing group as a whole, or even just an individual player was to pledge some portion of the difference between their falsified contract and their actual earnings toward Men of League or the NRL’s One Community program they’d earn a lot of respect.
But the club hasn’t even intimated that their intentions are to look internally and appropriately punish anyone revealed to be complicit in these rorts.
The club could show a lot of integrity by making a public statement vowing to hand down severe punishments to all willing participants still within their ranks, but again, they’ve missed the boat. If I were a Melbourne Storm fan, I’d need that reassurance that the club was looking to clean up its act and move beyond this.
As an outsider, it’d give me reason to feel there’s some contrition or remorse from the Storm camp.
So far, I’ve only heard an angry John Hartigan make this promise – I’d like to hear it from the directors and administration that are opposing him and the NRL.
Even better, if the club were to pre-empt the NRL’s eventual conclusion in its forensic investigation and make its own decisions based on their own internal investigation of the records and actually weed out any remaining “rats in their ranks” I’d applaud that as a great way for the club to move forward.
These are the sort of things that many other clubs would do in the same situation.
The Melbourne Storm’s apparent refusal to take any responsibility is just making things worse – for themselves, as they’re just feeding an increasing resentment from the rugby league community as a whole – for the players who are going to meet increasingly more hostile fans and opposition, as well as see their reputations blackened by the actions of a minority – for the fans, who by supporting their club tacticly support the behaviour and activities the club is so reluctant to renounce – and for the game in general.
It can’t be good thing for the NRL’s toughest point of expansion to breed so much resentment from the rest of the game – not to mention biting the hand that feeds them in their opposition of News Limited and the NRL.
It’s time for the Melbourne Storm to show some character or face a very difficult future.
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