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Roosters captain Braith Anasta during NRL Round 3, (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Renee McKay)
Is it just me or can anybody else smell an air of 2002 about this season? Cast your minds back to 2002 and allow me to furnish your memory with a dose of pointed illustrative nostalgia.
The Bulldogs were riding high at the top of the table, Matt Utai was an exciting young rookie on the scene, Andrew Johns was in the process of winning his 456th Dally M award, and the Warriors were finally realising their potential under coach Daniel Anderson.
In that same year, the Bulldogs were exposed as salary cap cheats.
They plummeted rather unceremoniously from being the competition’s glittering leaders to the relegation of shameful cellar-dwellers.
The NRL was reeling from their biggest cap scandal to date and were determined to make an example of the Berrys to ensure no club was silly enough to try and evade the cap again.
Well, that worked!
The Storm have not only re-enacted the reprehensible conduct of the Bulldogs in 2002, but they have exceeded it in magnitude by so far it makes the former breach look like an accounting error.
In 2002, a club that was struggling greatly in the early part of the season under new coach Ricky Stuart, began to gain some traction in an open competition. The Roosters gained such a powerful momentum that year that the vast majority of punters believe that even if Canterbury were allowed to compete for the title, they would have succumbed to the sheer ferocity of the Tri Colours rugged defence.
I guess we will never know for sure. What we do know is that Brad Fittler’s men deserved the win because they played within the cap rules.
End of argument.
Now we are here in 2010 and the Storm have been pushed to the side and sent to the naughty corner and it is again the Roosters who are proving to snatch the momentum of the competition.
Todd Carney, Mitch Pearce, Nate Myles, Anhony Minichello, Sean Kenny-Dowell … there are many great players. You get the idea. Can the Roosters stamp their authority in 2010 to secure their position as salary cap cheat year specialists?
In this humble reporter’s opinion, the answer is yes.
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