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They have been the dominant team of the last decade, but this year’s failed premiership defence could spell the beginning of the end of the Melbourne Storm’s time at the top of the NRL.
Exiting in the second week of the finals marked their worst finals effort since 2005 – excluding 2010, when they were stuck to the foot of the standings for most of the year – as their premiership defence was uncharacteristically ended in September.
It will leave questions needing to be asked, one being whether the Storm can contend for another premiership with the playing roster which they have had to rebuild since being torn apart by the salary cap scandal three years ago.
The Storm’s resurgence from a broken and dispirited team to a champion team was undoubtedly one of the feelgood stories of the NRL. They not only won back a premiership that the players felt was wrongfully taken away from them, but also won back the respect of the NRL community.
On the latter point, after the Storm were pinged for cheating the salary cap in 2010, they were snubbed by Channel Nine for all of the second half of the season.
It would be 366 days until they gained free-to-air exposure again, when they overcame the loss of their State of Origin contingent to defeat the South Sydney Rabbitohs by 16-6 at ANZ Stadium in Sydney.
And it wasn’t until Round 20 that year that they would once again feature on the Friday night stage – an opportunity they relished by defeating bitter rivals the Brisbane Broncos by 26-6.
Their impressive resurgence in 2011 saw the club finish with its first valid minor premiership. It would not, however, translate into a grand final berth, after they lost to the New Zealand Warriors in the penultimate weekend.
Some questioned whether they still had the motivation and hunger to win the premiership with the squad they were left with after the mass exodus in the wake of the salary cap scandal.
That question was answered emphatically in 2012. They won their first nine games of the season and, despite slipping up almost immediately after, their premiership aspirations were never in doubt as they went one better than the previous year’s effort.
Their class was there for all to see in the grand final, as they survived a scoreless second half to defeat the Bulldogs 14-4 in the premiership decider, in the process ending two long and painful years of trying to rebuild their club’s image.
The grand final victory was the eighth match in a club-record 15-match winning streak, which continued into the first seven rounds of this season.
Which is what brings me to the review of the Storm’s failed premiership defence this year.
After seven straight victories to start the season, it seemed a mere formality that the Storm would be headed to yet another premiership, but it would not be.
They won only four of their next 11 games, as the State of Origin period robbed the reigning premiers of the skeleton that is Billy Slater, Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk.
Their absence was felt severely as the Storm were thrashed 39-0 by the Bulldogs, the same team they defeated to win the 2012 premiership.
That came just a week after they had maintained a clean sheet against the Brisbane Broncos at home.
It was also the first time they had been blanked out in a match since the 2008 grand final, when they lost to the Sea Eagles 40-0.
Their premiership credentials then came into question after a Round 20 away loss to the Warriors, but as they have always done in the past, the Storm would answer their critics back in a hard way.
The Canberra Raiders felt the brunt of the Storm’s anger the following round, as Craig Bellamy’s men inflicted some capital punishment on the Green Machine, scoring an embarrassingly easy 68-4 victory at Canberra Stadium.
Four victories from their final five matches followed the Canberra rout, including a 64-4 thrashing handed out to wooden spooners Parramatta– this coming after they had coughed up the first try of the game).
Their impressive form saw them finish third on the ladder behind the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs, and it seemed their September experience would come to the fore again.
The Storm were always on the back foot against the Rabbitohs in their qualifying final – something of a surprise given the Storm had beaten Michael Maguire’s men in the two meetings during the regular season.
But the reality was that not only were the Bunnies keen to reverse those two losses to the Storm this year, they had also learnt their lesson from last year’s loss in the corresponding final. The home crowd support also helped.
This left the Storm needing to beat Newcastle in their semi-final to keep their premiership defence alive.
The Storm were unable to keep up with the Knights’ style of play in the semi-finals, becoming the first team to crash out of the finals in straight sets under the finals system that was put into effect last year.
Now the Storm, minus their representative core of players who are in England preparing for the World Cup, must ponder a summer of what could have been – and whether their time at the top is up.
Their 2014 season might be made harder by the fact that Cameron Smith could potentially play his final season for the club he has gracefully represented since 2002, through the dark times to the emphatic highs.
Smith and Billy Slater will turn 31 on the very same day next June, while Brett Finch and Jason Ryles are lost to retirement.
English five-eighth Gareth Widdop is bound for St George Illawarra, while Maurice Blair and Lagi Setu are off to the Gold Coast and Canberra respectively.
The club has, however, signed George Rose from the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, but that appears their only major signing apart from some fringe players from Penrith and the Cowboys.
I have no doubt the Storm will continue to be successful in the years to come, but they will inevitably lose their aura – as the Brisbane Broncos and St George Illawarra have before them.
Slater and Smith are both on the wrong side of 30, while Cooper Cronk will turn 31 by the end of next season.
Let’s just hope though that they do go around for another two-to-three years as they try to keep the Storm where they belong – at the top of the competition.
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