Adam Clements's Roar Profile

The comparison wasn’t between Penrith and the 2020 Roosters though. I honestly think it’ll be a Penrith vs Parra or Sharks GF. The Storm won’t aim up against strong opponents this year. The Cowboys on paper just aren’t in the same avenue as Penrith, Storm or the Eels so I think unless their form continues and it’s not a purple patch it’s hard to put them up there as a proper contender at the moment.

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Hard to write them off totally when you look at their entire body of work over the last 10 years, but my comparisons to the Roosters, and a shallower depth chart than usual are problems that are getting harder for the Storm to hide.

They lost to the currently 6th placed Parra with close to a full contingent as well.

On paper the Cows team that beat them last week is not in the same league as the Storm. The warning signs are there, that they’ll be in trouble come the business end of the season.

They definitely don’t have the depth to flex that they used to, injuries to Hughes, Paps and a couple of key forwards like Welch exposed that. They’re a victim of their own success, as most other teams wouldn’t face this sort of scrutiny if they had a few players down with injury, but it comes with the territory when you’ve been at the top for so long.

The comparison lay in the fact that the Storm just aren’t winning the games you’d usually expect them to. No one thought the Cowboys would trouble them either, even with Paps and Hughes out, but the Cows put them to the sword.

The Roosters of 2020 flogged a lot of bad teams, but lost to the teams they needed to beat to prove their premiership credentials.

They’ll be up the pointy end of the comp at the back end of the season but they won’t make a serious tilt at the title come finals time, from what I’ve seen so far this year.

Of course the timing of this isn’t great given their win against Manly last night but even then they weren’t convincing.

Lodge getting paid out his player option for next year tells you the entire story. If he was in the wrong, there’s no way they’d pay out his player option for next year. Something more to this story, watch this space.

NRL NEWS: Warriors defend Lodge's $700,000 payout, Hasler facing fine over ref rant

Didn’t the Ipswich Jets coaches, the Walker brothers, conceive an entire game plan based around slowing down their own play the ball under the theory that time in possession was the most important statistic of all? Maybe there is something to that after all.

Wrestling with the most pointless statistic in the NRL

He spent the weekend back in his hometown Newcastle after their win last weekend, perhaps he’s had close family in his ear to try and get him back home?

'Pony up': Broncos must do whatever it takes to keep Haas as Origin star requests immediate release

Bottom line is, Rugby League has become such a great TV product that it’s hard to justify going to games in person when most stadiums aren’t designed for the access, accommodation and egress of 20,000+ fans. ‘Stadiums’, like Brookvale and Leichardt, were once run of the mill suburban footy grounds like the ones you’d find nestled around practically any suburb or town on the East Coast.

You can upgrade the stadium all you like, but the surrounding infrastructure can only be massaged to a certain extent to deal with incoming and outgoing crowds on the days when a big game comes to suburban Sydney (Think a home semi or a Melbourne/Manly game at Brookie in the late 00’s). As long as these roadblocks (literally and figuratively) remain in place to attend NRL games, without even exploring the cost of such an undertaking for a family, crowds will continue to suffer. The game does itself a curious disservice in having such outstanding TV coverage that people would prefer to stay home and watch rather than make a sometimes arduous trek.

Sydney is way too lucky when it comes to public funding for football stadiums

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