For most of the 1990s the Brisbane Broncos dominated the NRL. They were chock full of rep stars and almost unbeatable at times. They also had a big advantage in local juniors, with a whole state from which to pick the best young kids.
Meanwhile the pool of juniors in New South Wales was fought over by a dozen Sydney clubs plus the Raiders and Knights. In Queensland Brisbane had to compete with only the lowly Gold Coast and Cowboys.
Given this unfair advantage, some people pushed for a second Brisbane team. At least that would dilute the Broncos monopoly on juniors. But for some reason it never happened– not officially, that is. Unofficially it did happen with the introduction of the Melbourne Storm.
In 1998 Brisbane had a team made up almost entirely of rep players. Check out their grand final side if you don’t believe me. They hammered the Bulldogs in that game. What do you expect? It was state versus suburb.
The 1998 season was also when Melbourne Storm came into the competition. Due to their Queensland links, the Storm took some of the best Queensland juniors away from the Broncos in the next few years. They ended up doing the job the second Brisbane team was meant to do. The end result? The Broncos won only two titles in the next 20 years: 2000 and 2006. That’s a long time ago now.
What this means is that all the Sydney clubs should get together and buy the Melbourne Storm a big thank you card for saving the competition from Broncos domination. If the Storm didn’t exist, Brisbane would have won at least ten of the last 20 premierships. Without the Storm, Brisbane would have got Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater and Greg Inglis.
(AAP Image/David Moir)
Wayne Bennett would have won about 18 grand finals and never gone to St George in 2009. Or maybe Craig Bellamy would have begun a 20-year run as Brisbane coach in what was, after all, his hometown. A Broncos side in about 2008 might have looked something like this:
Never mind the salary cap. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and I don’t see that side losing too many games.
So, Sydney clubs, hate on the Melbourne Storm all you like. Curse them for their success, their grappling, their cap rorting. But without them diluting the Queensland player pool, you would have spent the last two decades living in the Broncos Republic of Australia under the presidency of Wayne Bennett.
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You’ve got to feel for Wayne. His head-to-head record against Bellamy’s Storm is poor, and Melbourne are one of only two clubs Brisbane has a losing percentage against – the Broncos all-time winning record against Melbourne is only 29 per cent, by far their worst against any club (their next worst is Manly, at 40 per cent).
If the Broncos were to ever get hold of a time machine, they would probably go back, Terminator-style, and stop the Melbourne Storm being born in 1998. Maybe the fans of Sydney clubs would do that too. After all, they had to sit through all those Melbourne grand finals from 2006. They won’t be buying Smith and Bellamy any thank you cards.
Yeah, that Storm dominance wasn’t much fun for the fans of Sydney clubs. But think of the alternative – it could have been worse. It could have been the Broncos.
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