The Melbourne Storm’s dreams of greatness have ended, and the club that appeared to be at the pinnacle of rugby league a month ago could be headed for freefall.
A couple of months ago the Storm looked like an unstoppable force, with their roster of stars giving the club a third straight minor premiership despite a horror stretch during the State of Origin series.
That cemented the team as the best in the land, despite the success of hard-working teams Manly and Cronulla.
How things have changed.
While a second consecutive grand final victory would have cemented the Storm’s place as one of the game’s greatest teams – the first to win back-to-back titles in the salary cap era – a heavy defeat and the fallout could send them crashing back to earth.
For starters, Israel Folau, Mick Crocker, Matt Geyer, Antonio Kaufusi and Jeremy Smith are all leaving the club. The names coming in – Ryan Hinchcliffe and Arana Taumata – don’t quite have the star quality of the likes of Folau or Crocker.
More worryingly, the pack has already caught up. Manly were simply superb on Sunday afternoon, with their thumping 40-0 win sure to end the team’s reputation as a group of hard-working, good-but-not-great players.
The Storm also struggled against Newcastle, the Warriors and Brisbane in the latter part of the year, suddenly appearing all-too beatable.
Further, the wrestling techniques that Melbourne arguably pioneered that has revolutionised the game could also come under fire, with the infamous grapple and chicken-wing tackles to be finally killed off after Cameron Smith was made an example of by the NRL judiciary.
The club won a major battle this year in simply securing the futures of Craig Bellamy, five-eighth Greg Inglis and halfback Cooper Cronk, but keeping all their remaining Origin stars under the salary cap in the coming seasons remains a tough task.
Quite simply, no team can stay at the top of the heap for long when there is a salary cap in place. The same thing will happen to Manly when their best players suddenly become expensive rep players.
Bellamy has conceded he does not know how well the team will back up in 2009.
“We are losing a lot of players, without doubt. Losing some really good quality players,” he told Sportal.
“I don’t know how we’re going to go next year to be quite honest but I tell you we’ll be in there working hard in the pre-season and as Cooper (Cronk) said we like to pride ourselves as a club that never gives up.”
There can be no doubting Melbourne has been the outstanding team of the past few years. Unfortunately for Storm fans, they may have hit their peak a month too early.
