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Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy overseeas a training session in Melbourne. AAP Image/Julian Smith
Craig Bellamy could be forgiven a rueful shake of the head at the news that Rupert Murdoch had decided on the nuclear option of closing the News of the World in order to take the sting out of the phone hacking scandal.
News Limited took a similar approach with its NRL club, the Melbourne Storm, who Bellamy coaches, when it was discovered to have been in breach of the NRL salary cap by over $1.7m from 2006 to 2010.
As a result they were stripped of two premierships and three minor premierships, fined $1.6m, and not allowed to compete for points for the remainder of the 2010 season. The penalty imposed on the Melbourne Storm, its excellent coaching staff, and playing group was brutal in the extreme and unprecedented in professional sport.
In ‘Higher, Richer, Sleazier’, journalist and former St George and Western Suburbs coach Roy Masters puts it beautifully by saying that “the News Limited-owned club was cruelly punished by the half News Limited-owned NRL for salary cap breaches.
“The interest of the footballers (sport) were subjugated to the interest of the News Limited (business) as Rupert Murdoch’s media company ran an agenda to protect their commercial interests and corporate reputation…
“The inescapable conclusion was News Limited wanted heavy sanctions to retrieve their reputation, thrashed by their lack of supervision and undermined by their conflict of interest. They wanted a penalty that showed no favouritism to their 100 per cent-owned club.”
The parallels between the two cases are remarkable and I’ve no doubt that Masters knew exactly what was in store for the employees of the News of the World once the Milly Dowler scandal broke.
A subsequent inquiry exonerated Bellamy, his coaching staff, and players of having any knowledge of or involvement in the salary cap breaches and laid the finger of blame firmly on their former CEO Brian Waldron, his successor Matt Hanson, chief financial officer, Paul Gregory, and the former head of player recruitment and development, Peter O’ Sullivan.
The Storm shed the brilliant Greg Inglis, along with four other key players in order to come back under the salary cap and many pundits predicted a tough few seasons ahead rebuilding the side.
Bellamy retained the services of his star players, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk, and Cameron Smith, brought a number of talented youngsters in to the senior squad, and drafted in a number of discards from other clubs whose careers appeared to be on the wane.
He set to work with a punishing pre-season, gave a new sense of belief and purpose to players like Adam Woolnough, and Maurice Blair who may have thought that they had seen better days, and gave youngsters like Garreth Widdop, Justin O’Neill, and Matt Duffie a chance to prove themselves.
This morning, with four rounds to play, the Melbourne Storm sit on top of the NRL ladder and are virtual shoe-ins for the minor premiership.
Their performances in their 10-match winning run has been like the relentless Storm of old and suggests that Melbourne won their premierships largely because of the culture and superior coaching set up at the club, and not solely because of the salary cap breach as others have maintained. They should never have been stripped of those titles.
They are now favourites to win the competition outright and if there was a suspicion that their forward pack didn’t have the bite of old it was banished three weeks ago when they went toe to toe with the fancied Bronco forwards.
Craig Bellamy doesn’t need the Storm to win this season to know that his reputation as a great coach, and possibly the best in the game has been salvaged. It should never have been in doubt.
The NRL CEO, David Gallop, will no doubt be watching their progress with interest and perhaps a little anxiety over the coming weeks.
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