Thanks for playing, See you in 2011

For an excellent account of the Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal I highly suggest visiting the Oh Errol girls.   

For a pretty crappy attempt at giving my completely prejudiced anti-melbourne opinion that has been born & bred into me… Well you’ve come to the right place   

I’m sure almost everyone not currently living under a rock has heard about the dirty, cheating, lying mexicans that in NRL terms are commonly called the Melbourne Storm. There have been a tonne of facebook groups dedicated to hating the Melbourne Storm, and it was even a trending topic on Twitter. I am not even joking ‘Melbourne Storm’ was actually ahead of ‘Justin Bieber’ at one stage. And you know that when an Australian Rugby League team is higher than a 16 year old Canadian singer/heartthrob/pre-pubescent boy then the shit has really hit the fan.      

The Melbourne Storm were ahead of this! ^

 I am probably the last person who should be casting stones at the Melbourne Storm, I myself tend to look at rules as “guidelines” and do like to make a mockery of them as seen in my 113 Things Louise is not allowed to do at school. But I am an avid Manly supporter I like nothing better than seeing the Storm screw things up. And by screw things up I usually mean trivial things like losing matches, fumbling the ball out of dummy half, missing conversions from 10m out from the goalposts, and getting injured. But not even I, in my wildest dreams, could ever imagine them screwing up this majorly.   

There is nothing better than seeing this

 And yes I do have that picture glued into one of my school books. It is a very powerful motivating tool k?   

But of course, the ramifications of the Storm breaking the rules is a bit more serious than me breaking my school rules. ie The worst penalty I have ever received is a detention in year 4 because I didn’t colour my title page in neatly enough, however the penalty the Melbourne Storm received is:   

• $500000 fine
• $1.1million worth of sponsorship money to be repaid and split evenly between the remaining 15 teams
• Stripped of three Minor Premierships
• Stripped of 2007 & 2009 Premierships
• Stripped of 8 points accrued so far this season & will not be playing for any competition points for the remainder of the season

Then of course there is an ATO investigation, possible civil & criminal charges, dumped sponsorships from ME Bank, HostPlus, and SKINS, a handful of pissed off fans, and humiliation. And by humiliation I mean they are the butt of many new jokes, facebook groups, etc   

This was too good to not include 🙂

 Some of my favourite jokes include:   

• What has 26 legs and can’t climb a ladder? The Melbourne Storm
• What’s the difference between a toothpick and the Melbourne Storm? A toothpick has two points (this is also a good one to use whenever the 2008 grand final is mentioned. 40 to NIL!)
• Apparently Brian Waldron will be appearing on the new Celebrity Masterchef… his specialty: cooking the books
• Underbellamy: A Tale of Two books
• Cameron Smith: “Craig, how the hell are we meant to play out the remainder of the season knowing that we won’t be getting any points?” Craig Bellamy: “I don’t know, I’ll give Ricky Stuart a call…”

And some of the Facebook groups I have seen (naturally I joined them all):   

• I was also in the secret Melbourne Storm salary book
• Melbourne Storm: Salary cap FAIL
• If Melbourne didn’t cheat Parramatta would’ve found another way to lose (i love how it bags out Melbourne & Parramatta)
• At least my team can follow a salary cap
• I hate it when I forget to hide a file and my NRL club is ruined
• From a scale of 1 to the Melbourne Storm, how fucked are you?
• I bet the Sharks still find a way to win the wooden spoon…

Now I go to school in the middle of Parramatta, right across the road from Parramatta Stadium as luck would have it. Thus, the make-up of my school looks a little like this:   

 

You see that little slice of maroon? That is me. I am clearly in the minority here and am getting a little sick of reading facebook statuses such as “ZOMG Parra are 2009 Premiers” and “wot iz dis BULL$H1T bro? da eelz $hud b da 2009 premierz”. I cannot believe how many  people seem to think that the 2007 & 2009 Premierships should be handed to Manly & Parramatta respectively. Granted, these are the same people who follow the ‘Hayne Train’ and fail to see the similarities between their beloved Jarryd Hayne & Rihanna.

Shit is uncanny!

I honestly think that David Gallop is 1000000%  correct for not awarding these Premierships to the runners up, and this is not just my hatred of Parramatta talking because I also agree in not awarding the Premiership to Manly. A lot of people have used the argument that in a race, if the winner is discovered to have cheated and are consequently stripped of their medal then the person who came second is promoted to first place. I die a little bit inside when people say this to me. The race  analogy can not be applied to the NRL in any way, shape, or form because:

1. A race is a race, and an NRL finals series is an NRL finals series. I hate to sound cliche but it really is like comparing chalk and cheese. In a race there is a distinct first, second, third, etc and they are all in the race together & therefore all had the chance to contest the gold medal & thus to win. This is completely different to a knock-out finals series and I cannot emphasise this point enough.
2. What about the team that Melbourne beat to get into the grand final? If they had played against the Eels last year the Eels still might’ve lost. And then there’s the team that misses out on the top 8 either by 2 points or on for-and-against and could’ve made the grand final had they not lost to the Storm. There are just too many, ‘variables’ I suppose you could say, to fairly hand the Premierships to the runners up

So there you have it, my two cents worth on the Storm’s salary cap scandal. And for good measure, a picture of Billy Slater not looking happy.

Picture courtesy of AAPIMAGE

     

---