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Whether you get your league fix from Channel Nine, Fox or ABC radio, professional commentators are always lauding the Storm.
Great recruitment, they say. Legendary coach. Future immortal as captain. Trained to perfection and drilled in a way that has easily accommodated the loss of a champion halfback. How many other teams can say that? Not one.
Hope rose for a few weeks in September last year. We held our breath and struck bargains with the almighty hoping for the Cowboys without Johnathan Thurston to rise to match the Storm. But in the end the Rebellion was ruthlessly and comprehensively crushed; confidence so badly mauled the Cowboys barely avoided the wooden spoon.
I hate the Storm not because they are so good that I grudgingly have to rank them favourites. It’s not because Cam Smith and Craig Bellamy can’t really hide their innermost smug, although they try. OK if I’m honest, maybe it is a bit because of the smug, but there are plenty of other teams led by blokes that might struggle to beat Peter Dutton in a preferred PM poll of Greens voters.
Storm coach Craig Bellamy (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The reason I hate the Storm is that they are a team in search of a soul. They are a team of transplanted Queenslanders, Kiwis and other odds and sods that Bellamy picked up from the bargain bin.
I’ve yet to see a really passionate Storm fan. How can they be passionate? The Storm is (at best) their second team that they give some vague attention to when their AFL team has tanked or because they want to appear erudite about ‘rugby’ when conversing with friends or colleagues from north of the Murray.
The Storm only exist because the NRL thought it was in their financial interest to have a team in Melbourne. In marked contrast to every other expansion team, they didn’t come into existence to serve a league-loving population.
Every premiership the Storm win is a premiership denied to a team, city, suburb or region that could have had a real moment of community pride. Remember what happened when the Storm won last year?
Melbourne went truly crazy, celebrating for a week… for the Richmond Tigers. What is going to happen if – God forbid – the Storm win again? Melbourne will collectively shrug its shoulders and say “meh”.
I don’t want another Meh-Bourne Storm win. I want some lifelong fan stories this year – old blokes on their deathbed hanging on for one last premiership, real tears of joy, hugging strangers, ringing the 1908 bell or leaving on the porch light.
So join with me this finals and let’s bring it home you mighty Rabbitohs, Sharks, Roosters, Panthers, Dragons, Broncos or Warriors!
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