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.
Jeff
Guest
Hey Storm Gal. Ya forgot Izzy!!!
Jeff
Guest
According to some posts on his forum, most of the favourites are already being suspected of being in a similar mode of operation to Storm. oops David you may have to declare another Premiership null and void!!! Untainted -- not in my book.
Dan
Guest
Not an Eels fan, but just think anyone who says that this years victors will touted as "pretenders" is dumb.
StormGal
Guest
Oh dear. You must be another disgrunted Eels supporter and lol at what you said about the Storm keeping half the Q'ld team on their books. So last year Storm had Dallas Johnson, Greg Inglis, Cam Smith and Billy Slater in the Origin squad. Johnson left the end of last year so it left 3 players in this year's Storm squad.
Dan
Guest
What a load of crap! The Storm are now well and truly the biggest pack of pretenders of all thanks to their dodgy double book-keeping and what has now turned out to be masses over the cap. Anyone can win a comp if you're able to basically keep half the Qld Origin team on your books. The team who wins this year will be a "JUST" victor, untainted by the stench of treachery like the Storm.
Jeff
Guest
Whoever wins this year will be seen as 'pretenders.
Mushi
Guest
Bravo the tinfoil aht brigade are out in force. So a team cheating the salary cap loaded with international talent that even Oikee could coach to victory threw the entire season to make good on a wooden spoon bet.... You must of needed a good lie down after thinking that one up.
Norm
Guest
-"Can the Roosters stamp their authority in 2010 to secure their position as salary cap cheat year specialists?"...I truly hope so.
Chris
Guest
The difference is that I am not seeing any Inglis, Slaters or Smith's in the Roosters team. If you honestly think the Roosters paid top dollar for Carney you are missing a couple of screws.
oikee
Guest
Yeah right, it must stop now because we have dismantled the Storm, but let the Roosters be the benchmark. ? Come the end of year, i will be interested to see how many chooks make the 4 nations teams. And if they are that good, maybe some of their players need to move onto bigger contract's, if all they are getting paid is "chicken feed." :) 3rd party chooks are killing the game.
oikee
Guest
Well even their running last smelt of controvercy. Wonder how much the new silvertails had on that. ? They are working out of the sponsers pockets, even their front rowers are being educated as accountaints. :)
Mushi
Guest
Come on carney was a toxic contract - the rooster heftily outbid at a rumoured 300k for a player who with one slip up would have nadda, zero, zilch, zappo, nuffink. Pointing to the carney contract is revisionist history
Mushi
Guest
they had roughly a third of the cap avaialble last year with Ogre, Mini's golden boot contract, Fitzgibbon and Mason's contracts all coming off the books. the "roster full of internationals" came dead last if they were cheating then even south sunnybank under 13s were.
The Barry
Roar Guru
There's no way the Roosters would be rorting the cap...they've got plenty of niff-nuffs in their team that wouldn't be getting big $$ at all. Losing O'Meley, Fitzgibbon and Mason (among others) all at once would have freed up close to $1 mill per season. I just don't think they'll be good enough. Considering that they started their run of form about 4-5 weeks ago and there's 5 weeks + semis left means that the Rooters will have to be playing their A-game for 14 weeks straight - that's a very long time in this comp given that most teams have only been able to maintain a run for 6 weeks max. It's also too close to semi final time for Smith to let down his players and build them back up again. As renowned as Brian Smith is for re-building troubled clubs he's just as famous for mucking up at this time of year.
Dan
Guest
Exactly, it would be great to see the great dynasties stay together and be able to clash with each other. this fear of a premier league style exisitance will never happen in the NRL because the game simply isn't valuable enough, and the competition is structured in a way that the wealth is realtively evenly distributed (apart from prize money, which in the grand scheme of things isn't all that much). There is no champions league pot of gold for the best teams to propgate thier wealth, such as european football, and footballing dominance would come down to first and foremost, good coaching, recruitment and club managment. None of the salary cap breaching sides (caught or otherwise) have gone bankrupt, or even gone close, so clearly the money is in the game, somewhere, some how.
Dan
Guest
Sorry mate, but if there is one thing that the storm scandal has exposed is that the "a lot less than they would be worth" line is clearly a load of rubbish. If nothing else, the storm have been the best team at "polishing" players that other clubs didn't want, didn't rate or didn't see. All the storm fans (and i'm assuming players and coaching staff too) must have thought that these players were earning less than thier open market value to stay with the club. it wasn't the case. Finch, Quinn, Hinchclife, Dallas Johnson, Crocker, Matt King, Jeff Lima, Ben Ross... all players who you would assume were earning "below market value" but the reality is that they were not. I'm not pointing the finger at the Roosters, or justifiying the storm, but i severely doubt that there is ANY club in the NRL that doesn't look to exploit the cap in some way shape or form, and if that's the case then what is the point of having the cap in the first place? "My father once told me that you need three things in life. A good physician, a forgiving Priest and a clever Accountant" - Oskar Schindler
M1tch
Roar Guru
Did anyone see the smh player poll from a few days ago.. they went around asking players from clubs about the salary cap and if what players currently earn is enough etc all raiders players said the amount they get is fair.. 10 clubs I would say somehow 'cheat' the cap which means its time the NRL simply lets it easier for clubs to pay players whatever they want..its bad luck to clubs like the Sharks who need to do more to fix their own finances etc
Rikki-Lee Arnold
Roar Rookie
With Brian Smith turning up at the Dragons game on Sunday (only one day after his win over Parra) I think there is a lot of determination in this Roosters camp to win it. In my opinion they are probably the best team in the competition at the moment and most deserving of the wins they are getting. Loved Bennett trying to keep a straight face when a journo told him that Smith had been there taking notes on the Dragons....
Jeff
Guest
This team is playing Brilliant Rugby, let's forget the bloody salary cap and enjoy the game. Is it going to be "If a team plays well, they are cheating!" get rid of the cap and let's see some more teams like te current Roosters emerge. I for one am sick of seeing good teams disbanded. Bulldogs, Manly, Warriors, Broncos, Storm, The list goes on, it MUST stop.
sledgeross
Guest
If you look at the Chooks team of 2002, it looks pretty similar "cap-wise" to the Storm.