A lot of people hate the Melbourne Storm, but let’s be honest, that’s only because they’re so good.
I’m a Storm fan but understand how the rest of you feel as I used to hate the Broncos in the 90s. When your club gets beaten by the same team over and over again, you build a grudge and wait for the day they finally fall.
So when the Storm got busted for the salary cap scandal in 2010, a lot of rival fans grabbed the chance to put the boot in. For those fans, it was easy and convenient to believe a number of ideas about the success of the Melbourne Storm. But now, seven years later, we can see these ideas with more perspective.
Some people still believe them, but they are all myths which should be debunked.
Myth one: the Storm of 06-09 aren’t a great side
Melbourne played four successive grand finals from 2006-09, winning two. The two titles they won were later stripped due to the salary cap breaches. For some people, that means Melbourne 06-09 can be erased from history. They can’t be considered one of the great sides because they had an unfair advantage over other teams due to having more great players.
It may be true Melbourne had an unfair advantage through having more great players than other teams. But here’s the catch – that sentence applies to most of the top teams in world sport for the last hundred years. If you erased all those teams, your sporting history books would have a lot of blank pages.
If you go back just through rugby league and wipe out all the teams who had an unfair advantage over other teams through having more great players, you could start with the following: Brisbane 98; Canberra 94; Easts 75, Souths 67; St George 1956-66; Parramatta 81-83, Canterbury 84-85.
There was no salary cap in the past, but all those teams definitely had an unfair advantage over all the other teams through having more great players. They got away with it because at the time it wasn’t illegal.
(AAP Image/David Mariuz)
Myth two: The Storm bought their titles
Some people say Melbourne simply ‘bought’ their premierships through rorting the salary cap. The trouble with this theory is the Storm’s great players – Cam Smith, Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater, and Greg Inglis – all came to the club as unknown teenagers on apprentice wages. If that’s ‘buying’ a premiership, it is accounting far more genius than any of the later salary cap rorts.
This in contrast to the way Manly, Easts, etc used to buy players in the 70s and 80s who were already proven stars – like when Manly took Boyd, Brown, and Dorahy from Wests in 1980, or when Easts got Ron Coote in 72.
So, rather than buying star players, Melbourne got unknown rookies and developed them into stars within the club’s own systems.
Myth three: The Storm were rightly stripped of the 2007 title
I may be wrong here but if not, this needs looking into.
I once read an article that said the 2009 side was over the cap enough to have their title stripped, but in 2007 the breaches were only serious enough to warrant a fine. If that’s true, it was ludicrous to deprive Melbourne of the 2007 title.
Of course, David Gallop’s NRL administration wasn’t interested in such nuances in 2010. ‘Gung Ho’ Gallop came in all guns blazing and stripped both ’09 and ’07 – an injustice which is easily fixed and should be, now that the dust has settled. They’ve already paid the fine so Melbourne should get their 2007 title back.
As an aside, we can only assume Gallop also ‘erased’ the 40-0 grand final loss to Manly from 2008. That means the biggest grand final loss record reverts to St George for the 38-0 hiding they copped in 1975.
Myth four: The Storm’s success was due only to salary cap cheating
This was the easiest and most convenient myth for Storm-haters to believe – that the whole edifice of Melbourne’s success 06-09 was based on salary cap rorting.
This was a ridiculous idea even in 2010, and was proven so in the next couple of years when the Storm came back and won a minor premiership in 2011 and the premiership in 2012.
Still, in the fury of 2010, many people predicted that the Melbourne Storm were done. They’d never win another comp, they wouldn’t make the eight, they’d even fold as a club and cease to exist. I actually had a $100 bet (proceeds to charity) with sportswriter Peter Fitzsimons, who predicted with confidence the Storm would cease to exist within two years.
Fitzsimons, like many others, wanted to believe their success was entirely down to rorting. By the time Melbourne won the minor premiership the very next year, Peter conceded he was wrong and gave $100 to the Salvos.
(AAP Image/Paul Miller)
At the time of the cap scandal, Melbourne Storm were slammed from all sides. Greg Inglis, Ryan Hoffman and other players had to leave, the club was on its knees. To come back and immediately win a minor premiership, then the title the next year, was an extraordinary resurrection – a truly amazing comeback.
Those two years alone make a mockery of Myth number four, that the Storm’s success 06-09 was solely due to salary cap rorts. Anyone who has read Craig Bellamy’s book Home Truths would know the club was built on far more than a few stray dollars and Greg Inglis’s boat.
These four ideas are all myths. Yet many rival fans still believe them. That’s the power of sporting hate!
Now what’s the other reason people hate Melbourne? Oh yes, the ‘wrestling.’ But wait, it’s only July. We’ll have to wait til September before that whinge gets its annual airing. Until then, let’s just say all teams try to slow down the play the ball – some just do it better than others.
The real reason people hate Melbourne Storm is they are just too good. Smith, Cronk, Slater, Bellamy: which fan wouldn’t want any one of those blokes at their club, let alone all four?
Never mind guys, Cronk’s gone at the end of this year, Slater probably the next, and Smithy after that. Until then, to misquote the great Gough Whitlam, maintain the hate!
Harry
Guest
Can’t believe people actually believe they didn’t know it was going on. Oh yeah this brand new car magically appeared my house I swear I didn’t know about it ????
Harry
Guest
Mate I get your a storm supporter but you are bias asf. Myth 1 you try bring back old stuff from the past (classic thing people do) yet was it illegal what they did? Did they go 3.2m over the cap to keep some of the best players in the world. Oh no they didn’t because there was no cap which means they didn’t cheat unlike Melbourne Myth 2 just because they started there careers there doesn’t mean they get a unfair advantage on every other nrl team? Are Melbourne the golden child of the nrl and deserve better then the others? Like come on mate surly you didn’t make that a myth Myth 4 so you reckon Melbourne would’ve been as good as they were if they didn’t cheat? 3.2m over the salary, worst cheating in Australian sporting history, giving out free cars and boats the plays who “apparently didn’t know”. Hahahaha enough said
celtic bandaid
Guest
The biggest myth is you think people hate Melbourne because of your 4 points. They have a little bit to do with it but the main reason they are disliked is because the whole way RL is now played and more importantly refereed is entirely to support a team there and subsequently argue for a greater slice of broadcasting revenue. Issues during a Melbourne game are regularly overlooked or ignored delivering a hybrid game of Oztag and Wrestling which naturally favours Cooper Cam and the great bitchy kicker and neck breaker Billy Long term RL followers like me are bemused and disappointed and with their style of play requiring 85% of players to be gorillas potential younger players now play soccer and AFL in what was once RL heartland. Keep favouring Melbourne NRL and RL will eventually become like a boxing - anoccasional massive rater with very little participants To me its sad
bbt
Guest
How I see the whole sorry affair. 1. Storm were the unwanted child. NRL, 1/2 owned by News Ltd didn't give them any support. News Corp wanted to dump them, and gave instructions to fatten them up for a sale. Channel 9 had no long term vision and didn't really want to put any effort into promotion. What to do? Hire some one with Melbourne (AFL) experience, and, with a nod and a wink, tell him to get the place happening, so that a sale could take place. Let this CEO run rampant, with no oversight from NRL HQ or Ltd. TPAs were common in AFL, why not introduce them into Storm's structure? The team, assembled from basically cast offs and astute talent spotting , is approaching crunch time as far as salary cap pressures are concerned. AFL style TPAs are the answer. Get into bed with some dodgy types, who will help facilitate the "scam" with backdated invoices etc, and you are now hanging onto your players. (The part that gets me, is that one of the TPAs was for Cameron Smith on behalf of Foxsports, a News Ltd entity. Waldron realised that the house of cards was in danger of tumbling, so he jumped ship to the Rebels. The thing that really grates us Storm fans is: 1. The involvement of News Ltd all the way through. Then when the expose happened, they threw the child overboard. 2. NRL HQ made no effort to involve themselves in Storm, at any stage. A more switched on management would have known that an outlier club is a sitting duck to dodgy business. 3. NRL HQ never dug deep to see when exactly the Storm team was over the salary cap limit. Gallop wanted it out of the way ASAP - we suspect under instructions from News Ltd. Storm fans still await, an answer on this one.
Mushi
Guest
Legal precedent? Um I think the being part the systemic fraud aspect makes any comparison to technical breeches sheer lunacy
Crosscoder
Roar Guru
Ennis/Lewis/Gordon/Maloney/Barba unwanted by prior clubs.Hardly paying overs for any of them.Matter of fact even now BBQ Maloney is whining he is not getting the loot compared to other 5/8ths. Heighington,Prior and Ryan all unwanted by the Tigers and Dragons.Ryan only operating for a couple of years. Graham has been with the club for years ,Holmes and Bird not as long. club paying under for Holmes since has a bigger upgraded contract. They actually operated under the cap. Highest paid players IMO would be Gallen,Graham,possibly Maloney and Barba until sniff time. The peptide issue happened for a couple of months season 2011,their position on the ladder in the end 13th. 2012 positon on the ladder 7th. Moral of story, 2011 debacle could hardly be called a performance enhancing one.
mushi
Guest
Not dob yourself in – you only do that if you think someone’s close, in which case you throw the fall guys under the bus, keep things at arms length and plead for leniency for self-reporting. I’d have the fall guys once removed (to be fair I’d go as many times as I could afford) as well you pay person A’s family members and school fees and car leases and they then pass that on to person B’s family members etc so when Person B is caught you basically need a very talented forensic accountant to trace it back. And then Person A steps up. It’s a simplified version but the mechanics aren’t actually that tough. This is what having to do anti money laundering training every 3 months for 15 years combined with being a cross border tax guy for sometime teaches you… how to launder money and obscure the fact pattern. To be honest there are way I think you could do it that getting caught would be a remote outside possibility – but it would cost more than NRL clubs would be willing to risk. I would do say 3-4 years with one set of sponsors and one group as the isolated bag men. That distorts the labour market enough, allows you to align you contracts properly to have the right “fair” year and provides enough option value around players. Then you reset and if you do get cuaht it’s only ever 3-4 years of titles. Even then the titles taken away is the biggest claytons punishment ever 1. Your fans still consider that a win, just look at this article 2. You can never retrospectively take away how your fans felt during that season. The fans experienced it regardless of what the authorities say – A grand final win isn’t about an internet argument 10 years later, it’s about that day. And yes you still need all the other things (I did say that right in the first post) but you create a sustainable competitive advantage outside of that. Saying there is no point in looking at it because you need other things is like saying no point in getting good halves because you also need good middle forwards.
The Barry
Roar Guru
Parra were about $500K over a cap of $6.8M The Storm were over the cap by almost $4M across five years. The cap was $3.6M in 2006 and $4.1M in 2010. The Storm were over the cap by more than $1M in each of 2009 and 2010.
KenW
Guest
Super League is a red herring. A completely different context, nuts in it's own way but nothing to do with systemic salary cap rorting in a stable competition. You're right of course on the Dogs though, their 2004 win has an unfortunate asterix, similar to the Storm's in 2012. Both teams were legal at the time they won, but they wouldn't have existed as they were without the previous indiscretions. But I'm not sure why you say the punishments were different - apart from happening at different times of the year they were basically identical. Actually considering inflation the Dogs got off worse since the Storm's fine was the same 8 years later. I'm sympathetic to Duncan's intentions behind the article but, to a neutral, this just seems like an unnecessary attempt to re-write history now that the wounds have healed to small scars. There's a couple of comments I can't help making though: Myth 1: This is not the same as other great sides that had fantastic rosters. They won by playing the game better on the field and in the backoffice. Melbourne just ignored the rules to gain an advantage - you can't win if you don't actually play the game - Melbourne did not field an NRL side those years so they can't have had the best NRL side. Myth 2: Somewhat true. Melbourne did get these players as youngsters rather than overtly buying stars. It probably does speak to the good pathways and development processes. But it wasn't like these players weren't known to others, they managed to collect and then hold on to so many good young players as they developed, at least in part, because they had more money to spend. Myth 3: Melbourne were rightly stripped of the 07 title. This was a pretty vague argument to start with ('I once read an article that stated' isn't exactly solid evidence), but it's also misguided. Whether a fine or more substantial penalties have been applied in salary cap cases is not about meeting some specific money amount over the cap. Teams get a fine when they breach the cap because too many players got contract bonuses or they failed to have a benefit classified outside the cap. Teams get excluded when they create dedicated systems to hide and overpay players beyond their stated contracts. Myth 4: Who knows? The Melbourne team that was there was not the Melbourne team that would have been there without the salary cap rorts. So whether or not they would have been a good team anyway is pure speculation.
Conan of Cooma
Roar Rookie
Except a large chunk of those players are no longer with the Sharks, the Sharks didn't win a GF by "cheating", and the punishment fit the crime. Just like it did with the Storm. If the Sharks have to put up with cerebrally challenged commentary related to something that happened in the past then the Storm and its' supporters can suck it up and enjoy it, too.
Aem
Guest
The key word was "introduce".....
The Barry
Roar Guru
So is the plan that after you have built your team illegally after a couple of seasons that you have your own 'whistleblower' dob you in, come clean to minimise the penalties, cut some fringe players and rebuild a 'legitimate' squad around the gun players you've accumulated. Otherwise every title you win is in jeopardy of being taken away. You still need a good club, coach, staff etc. The Storm have been able to rebuild after getting busted but other clubs like the Eels not so much.
elvis
Guest
Ahh you forgot those other 5 unknowns in the team, Kevin Walters, Mick Hancock, Shane Webke, Darren Smith and Michael DeVere.
Brendon
Guest
Actually the Storm were forced to play for no points period. They weren't offered the chance to get under the cap and play for something in 2010. The Eels were still able to make the finals and play for a purpose. There salary cap breaches were higher than the Storm's, and yet they were fined less, and had a lesser penalty imposed.
Brendon
Guest
Instead they were injecting them with peptides, right? There is your Ben Johnson link, right there.
Brucey
Guest
The process Gallop and News went through to strip the 2007 title was appalling and lacked any procedural fairness. News were angry and wanted to avoid any damage to their brand and went in with a sledgehammer, ignorant of the facts. On the facts and legal precedent the 2007 must be restored immediately.
jeff dustby
Guest
1 premiership this century - well done
jeff dustby
Guest
they copped the deserved punishment
The Barry
Roar Guru
They pay the same amount these days? The salary cap was $3.6M in 2006 and $4.1M in 2010. It's $7M in 2017. Even allowing for the cap breaches there's no way they're paying the same amount these days.
The Barry
Roar Guru
You didn't explain anything. The Storm kept duplicate contracts. Duplicate book keeping doesn't mean one set of books for contract payments and one for TPAs. By definition they're not 'duplicates' if they're recording different information. It was a deliberate attempt to hide from the NRL how much they were paying their players. Sorry mate you're just massively incorrect on this. It was just under $4M across five years. It wasn't the result of a couple of TPAs.