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Craig Bellamy might have the wood over Wayne Bennett over the duration of his coaching career but last night he was clearly outcoached by the master.
Bennett was assisted by the fact that Melbourne Storm stars Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk are all slowly coming back to the field.
The three Queenslanders, along with Bellamy, have arguably created one of the greatest dynasties in modern-day sport.
Slater and Smith will go down as the best player in their respective positions for at least for the last 25 years and Cronk has been a perfectionist.
But as each of them approaches 30 we are starting to witness uncustomary mistakes. Errors which suggest their reflexes and body cannot go with their minds.
Starting with Cronk, who is least ‘gifted’ of the three. Over the years he has mastered the art of kicking and is a perfectionist.
Usually during a season we could count on our hands the number of times Cronk has kicked out on the full, misplaced a bomb, thrown a forward pass or been unable to get a repeat set of six.
In the past two weeks he has made each of the mistakes, not once but a couple of times in a single match.
Slater is the greatest fullback of the modern era, thanks largely to his blinding speed off the mark.
There is no substitute for speed and it becomes an even greater factor when Slater’s initial burst of 20 metres has been quicker than any player that has played the game.
He has been able to create panic for defences by simply standing beside Cronk or Smith.
Often defences have focused on solely Slater but his sheer speed out of the blocks has still created havoc and at times it has been impossible to defend against him.
On top of all this Slater has been a master of the positioning game. Rarely is he out of position in either attack or defence.
But it seems Slater has lost that initial burst of speed and he has come back to the field.
Suddenly the defences have been able to adjust and he is not as elusive.
His speed can’t seem to manufacture tries and it has put pressure on Cronk and Smith.
All of the sudden their finisher is not able to put icing on their cake, and they have had to look at alternative ways to the try line.
In his mind, Slater knows he has lost his greatest attribute causing him to be rather desperate, and Slater has made mistakes such as throwing wild passes as he has been rounded up by defences on more of frequent note.
Slater has dropped bombs and all of a sudden his positioning play has been weakened.
Overall Slater is less effective and this has hurt the Storm in the crunch matches and affected his partner in crime, Cronk, immensely.
Smith lacks pace but has made up for it with his sharp mind. He can anticipate a play eventuating but with Slater and Cronk slightly behind the eight ball in the recent times, the Storm are unable to execute as proficiently.
All of a sudden Smith has been caught in two minds.
Normally he knows exactly when to run and when to pass but over the past couple of weeks he has been caught with ball numerous times.
Rarely has he thrown flat passes to his forwards to get them across the advantage line because suddenly Smith is thinking how he can penetrate the defence with an ageing Slater and Cronk next to him.
Smith can visualise the gap, he can see it brewing but he has doubts if his partners can execute a play to take advantage from it.
While the three of them can still break defences they simply cannot do it as frequently.
They will continue to remain at the top and defeat the weaker teams but when it comes to the finals, they will be outplayed and outcoached.
The finals this year have shown the Storm are back with the field with their stars are in the decline and with age catching up, next year will only be tougher.
Perhaps the dynasty is the Storm is over.
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