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With only two weeks until the finals roll around, I’m calling it now.
Cameron Smith will lift the Provan-Summons Trophy on 1 October in Sydney as the Melbourne Storm win the 2017 premiership – but it will be for a reason different to what you might expect. Their departing club legend, hero and integral ‘big three’ member Cooper Cronk’s fairytale premiership story will lead them to victory.
The Storm have been the best team of 2017, and the ladder shows it. Despite losses to Parramatta, Cronulla and the Roosters and a shock loss to the Titans, the Storm have been convincing all season, particularly in their 18-13 win against the Sharks without Cronk, their 42-12 thumping of the Broncos and their 40-6 walloping of Manly in Cameron Smith’s 350th game.
The Storm’s youngsters, like Brodie Croft, Jahrome Hughes, Brandon Smith, Cameron Munster and Nelson Asofa-Solomona have shown that the retirement of the big three is not the end of the Storm.
But when it comes down to it, the biggest case for the Storm winning the premiership is the happily-ever-after formula.
When analysing most of the recent premiers, a theme can be noted. The Sharks’ breakthrough premiership was a feel-good story and a fairytale story for the ages. The Storm had no hope of winning the title from the moment the Sharks booked their place in the big dance a week before, despite Cameron Smith’s wonky pass after the siren almost certainly losing the Storm the grand final.
In 2015 the Cowboys ended their wait for a premiership in style, with hero and future immortal Johnathan Thurston sealing the passage of the Provan-Summons trophy to North Queensland. While the Broncos played for the fairytale of Wayne Bennett’s homecoming season and the retirement of Broncos hero and legend Justin Hodges culminating in a premiership, the drought-breaking story of the Cowboys was too much for them.
In 2014 another drought-breaking win gave the South Sydney Rabbitohs their 21st premiership over the Bulldogs. The fairytale story sold papers and stirred interest in the game even before the Rabbitohs made the grand final – indeed even before the finals began there were stories about the Rabbitohs’ big chance to break their drought.
(Image: AAP Image/Joe Castro)
Papers need headlines to sell, which raises an important point: a side’s talent or potential to play a better game than their opponents doesn’t make headlines, but a dramatic story like a fairytale retirement premiership or a drought-breaker certainly does.
Even in 2013 the advertisements for the grand final won by the Sydney Roosters were based on Sonny Bill Williams’ return to the game and his fairytale deliverance of a title to the eastern suburbs.
It was not that the minor premiers were looking to hammer home their dominance or that the Roosters had returned to finals football that captured attention but rather that the fairytale story involved the Prodigal Sonny Bill.
In 2012 the Storm sought vengeance against the NRL for what they believed was an unfair punishment of stipped 2007 and 2009 premierships for cheating the salary cap. The headlines for the game involved both the Storm’s fairytale premiership victory and Bulldogs’ coach, Des Hasler’s, back-to-back titles with Manly and Canterbury. It was not about the dominant Bulldogs as minor premiers or the meeting of first and second on the ladder.
For those who think I have my tinfoil hat on or who think it’s all a big conspiracy, I’d like to put your suspicions to bed. In 2012 the Storm deserved their title. The Roosters dominated 2013 and were the best side. Souths were completely deserving of their fairytale title in 2014 and so were the Cowboys in 2015. The 2016 Sharks were undisputedly the form side of the competition.
All those teams deserved the title and were the best teams of the year.
But if we are going for a fairytale big game in 2017, then the NRL grand final will be played between the Parramatta Eels and the Melbourne Storm in a replay of the 2009 grand final. The Eels are another side with a premiership drought, the longest in the game, and look the goods on form despite a shock loss to the Knights.
But the Storm’s fairytale story of Cooper Cronk’s departure from the club and the splitting up of the big three should be enough to see them continue the trend of happy endings and take the trophy to send Cooper Cronk out on a high if it is indeed his last season in the NRL.
And they all lived happily ever after. The Brothers Grimm would be proud.
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