The Melbourne Storm are a club guaranteed to evoke strong feelings from most rugby league fans. There’s generally no grey areas with the Storm – you either love them or you hate them. They are nobody’s second team.
That said, most clubs envy the Storm’s success, their continued presence in the finals each year and their ability to effortlessly comply with the salary cap, at least since the bad old days. The Storm have the best coach in Craig Bellamy, the most influential player in Cameron Smith and an ability to seemingly produce top-level players from nowhere year after year.
The key to the Storm’s success is this ability to produce quality players internally rather than have to compete in the open market. This ability goes back to the days of the emergence of Cameron Smith, Greg Inglis, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater. I can’t remember when or even if the Storm have signed a genuine marquee player for big dollars. No Ben Hunt, Andrew Fifita or Daly Cherry-Evans gold-plated signings here. Their modus operandi is to develop players from an early age and get them playing the Storm way. If they don’t either develop or fit in, they are quietly moved on.
Cameron Smith (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
This recruitment style enables them to manage the constraints of the salary cap, as only their homegrown marquee players like Cameron Smith, Cameron Munster and Jesse Bromwich command the big-dollar contracts. There is no Anthony Milford, Russell Packer or Josh Dugan salary cap pain at the Storm.
As their players develop and outgrow their market value at the Storm some move on to other clubs. In recent years players like Kevin Proctor, Gareth Widdop, Tohu Harris and Jordan McLean left for greener pastures and bigger pay packets. Of their current squad Tino Fa’asuamaleaui will be joining the Titans next year, Suliasi Vunivalu may be heading to rugby union and Josh Addo-Carr is apparently looking for a bigger payday elsewhere.
Rest assured, the Storm will already have identified their replacements.
A look through the 17 players who ran out in Round 18 reveals that all but four made their NRL debuts with the Storm. Of the four ‘imports’, Jerome Hughes had played two first grade games elsewhere, Branko Lee 53 games, Josh Addo-Car ten games and Albert Vete 41 games. Each of these players could only best be described as a journeyman when they arrived at the Storm. Their signings went virtually unheralded. Now Addo-Carr is one of the game’s leading wingers and an Australian representative, while Hughes represents New Zealand and is doing a great job of leading the team around each week.
Last year the Storm debuted Ryan Papenhuyzen and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, and this year sees the emergence of players like Isaac Lumelume, Harry Grant, Darryn Schonig and Nicho Hynes. The quality of these homegrown debutants is emphasised by the fact Ryan Papenhuyzen is destined to play Origin for New South Wales sooner rather than later, Tino Fa’asuamaleaui has already represented both Samoa and the Prime Minister’s 13 and Harry Grant has been hailed as the ‘new Cameron Smith’ after just 14 first-grade games and wouldn’t look out of place in a Maroons jumper.
But the Storm’s successful recruitment doesn’t stop with their homegrown players, as they have long had the ability to identify either seemingly average players or players near the end of their careers and turn them into champion club players and even Origin and Test stars. In recent times these conversions include Josh Addo-Carr, Jerome Hughes, Dale Finucane, Cheyse Blair, Jason Ryles and Brian Norrie. Once they come to the Storm they play to the Storm standard.
Of course there are other clubs who have recently produced a host of homegrown debutants, particularly the Broncos and the Panthers. And then there are a number of successful clubs who rely more on imported talent – for example, the Roosters and the Raiders – but overall nobody does recruitment like the Storm.
andyfnq
Roar Rookie
Storm are more of a Queensland team than the Titans
Willie La'ulu
Roar Guru
Max is in his feelings.... :laughing:
Willie La'ulu
Roar Guru
Avid Storm fan. A few failed under him, I think no more than the 2014 recruitment lot - Ben Roberts, Junior Moors, Lagi Setu, Junior Sau. All decent players on the downhill movement, but failed to grow up a leg with the Storm. Sam Kasiano was a sad one, one I wish worked out. Nate Myles, George Rose... to name a few
Willie La'ulu
Roar Guru
For reasons being with JAC, he is known to have a fair few "bad" influences in Sydney, hence his family are so stoked he is in Melbourne, away from trouble or any negative influences and is playing GREAT footy! My fear is him falling back into comfortable life and negative influences ruining his career once hes back in Sydney. I give him 2021 to play steady, then 2022 to fall apart, sad as it is to say.
Pickett
Roar Rookie
Fair go Rob, Latrell & Manu played in Easts SG Ball (U18 comp) - how much junior do you want to be? RTS came over when he was 18 and played in the U20's (Holden Cup) - that's pretty junior by todays standard no?
Rob
Guest
Sorry it was $300 at 16? I must have got his money numbers mixed up with Ponga’s. He’s tipped to be the next Ponga, straight out of Brisbane to be a Roosters junior born and bred? RTS local junior straight from NZ at 18. Manu Local junior signed from NZ aged 17. Mitchell sign from Taree as a 17 year old after starring in junior rep games. Seriously the Rooster have next to zero Roosters. It’s like saying the beef patty is straight from Old McDonald’s farm.
Rob
Guest
God I hope so. Sorry Dragon’s fans.
Harry
Guest
Second rowers, too - there's not really any consensus in the game at the moment as to what second rowers should be. Are they workhorses? Enforcers? Hole-runners? Halfback-hunters? Extra five-eights who can put a little kick in for the winger or a nice pass to the centre? A mixture? Depends which team you're looking at!
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
Yeah, it sort of cyclical, ‘lock’ to me is changing again, to a creator sort of player part of the spine possibly. I feel for most of origins history ‘center’ spot often filled with a young kids who would move on to five/8 or lock later in career or what they play week in week out. Sometimes just filled with talents from those spine positions to get ‘skill/brains/creators’ into the side at expense of a first grade playing center. Lockyer, filter spent awhile in positions that wasn’t their jr rep ones.
Albo
Roar Rookie
Certainly Harry Grant definitely has that same attribute to be the last line of defence if at all possible. Nathan Cleary is another one. The good ones have it as a natural instinct. Though Cam Smith has it as an art form !
Nat
Roar Rookie
I agreed with your premise that there's not too many how appear to get better when leaving the Storm. The thought to investigate came from my learnings around Ese'ese. I was reading the Newy faithful talking him up but I hadn't really heard much of him. Turns out he's been a bit of a beast when he's on the park. Who knew. (disclaimer, I'm not aligning the Brisbane system with the Storm in any way)
Tony
Roar Guru
The higher defensive stats may also point to the fact that Newcastle have spent more time defending than the Storm
Rob
Guest
Over the years I have noticed Smith picking up or grounding the ball in the in goal after a kick? Both in attack or defence. Often behind Slater. What hooker makes 40-50 tackles in the middle and does that consistently? Dead set I just wish my teams fullback was in the tv picture as the opposing team score sometimes. People use to say Thurston was always close to the ball, chasing and in the picture? Slater, Cronk and Munster beat Smith to the ball sometimes. On the weekend Smith linked up on 2 line breaks once chasing Hyne? He was denied a try from supporting and toeing through a kick off Vunavalu. He beat Holmes, Drinkwater and Masters to the lose ball? F.,, me he’s almost 40 years old and only just returned from busting his shoulder scoring a try backing up a 40m line break? You’re winning easy and the game is nearly over also Cameron. Who other than Smith does this? Possibly Teddy, Slater, Ponga, Thurston? Harry Grant, Papenhuyzen, B.Smith, Munster do it also from what I’ve seen. They never switch off. How does Bellamy coach that or does he identify it?
Paul
Roar Guru
I didn't look at Glasby's numbers when I made the comment Nat,so thanks for throwing in some thoughts on those. I was going with the gut, based on his impact in games for the Storm versus his impact for the Knights. As you suggest, he's not standing out as much, hence my belief he's gone backwards as a player, but I might have to rethink thatview if his defensive numbers are well up.
Nat
Roar Rookie
He is an interesting example. I just had a look at his stats as a basic overview from Melbourne to Knights. It would appear that had a far better running game at Melbourne, I suppose being the beneficiary of having quality halves steering you around. However, his defensive workrate has gone through the roof at Newy. I wonder if you run that rule across all ex-Storm players, maybe they get noticed less because Melbourne are always 'up there' where those who leave for better $ don't win as much, therefore, don't play finals or get the notoriety. From a fantasy POV, he's never rated higher.
Pickett
Roar Rookie
Rob, have you got an older brother called Puppy Serf? Sam Walker is not on $800k. He would be earning 100k more than Luke Keary currently if he was. Keary only just accepted a contract upgrade that gives him about 930k pa for 3 years or so. Also, RTS, Latrell, Watson and Manu all made their senior (and junior) debuts at Easts. So they are as true blue Easts as most of the Storm players mentioned here.
Tony
Roar Guru
Thanks Max, I meant to write David Fifita rather than Andrew Fifita. My bad. In relation to DCE, he was probably a poor example to use, however he wouldn't have got away the the Titans/Manly contract fiasco if he was at the Storm all those years ago.
matth
Roar Guru
Yep I have the three QLD teams, then Storm on a par with my childhood NSWRL team, Canterbury.
JGK
Roar Guru
Lots of Queenslanders!
matth
Roar Guru
They’d be my fourth of fifth team?