After the Storm...

CHEAT.
It’s not a word you throw around lightly. To be branded a cheat is one of the worst insults possible; acknowledgement by your peers that you deliberately broke the rules to win.
Cheat.
Ordinarily in sport the word cheat is used to describe athletes who take illegal substances to help them win. It’s also used to describe organisations that break the rules to help them win.
Cheat.
Ben Johnson was a cheat. Marion Jones was a cheat.
The Melbourne Storm for the last five years? Cheats.
Cheats that paid their players around $1.7 million above the salary cap over the last five years.
For rugby league fans it’s the ultimate shock. The Melbourne Storm, grand final winners in 2007 and 2009, minor premiers between 2006 and 2009, a club that let go players like Israel Falau, Michael Crocker and ??, but could still boast superstars Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Greg Inglis while tapping into a talent feed that was the envy of the National Rugby League (NRL).
How did they keep finding this talent? Some muttered darkly about how the Storm are owned by News Limited, the Rupert Murdoch’s multi-national behemoth that helped tear rugby league apart in the mid-1990s. They seemed to think that having one of the game’s part-owners as their owners meant they were getting some kind of a helping hand. The more fair-minded – yours truly included – felt that instead of trying to drag the Storm down, other clubs should be trying to lift their games.
Ha.
Today’s news took News – and the rest of us – by surprise. News Limited chairman John Hartigan was scathing in his condemnation of Storm management, as well he might be. The Storm were stripped of their two latest premierships (they won their first in 1999 – just their second season), their last four minor premierships and all their 2010 competition points; they will not receive any more competition points for 2010 no matter how many games they win; they must pay back around $1.1 million in prizemoney as well as pay another $500,000 in fines; not to mention the troubles they will have in the future in trying to keep their current stars and recruit new ones.
The penalty is without precedent in Australian sport, although the NRL has come down harshly on teams breaking the salary cap. In 2002 the club had 37 points taken from them after the NRL had found they had systematically rorted the salary cap. The Bulldogs were able to come back from this setback to win the 2004 competition after negotiating with its multitude of star players. The Warriors were docked four points in 2006 for smaller salary cap rorts, while Canberra Raiders fans must still be thankful a different administration was in charge in 1991 when their salary cap rorts from their premiership-winning team in 1990 were uncovered – they were allowed to keep playing and only fell short to an inspired Penrith Panthers team in the grand final.

SO what for the future of the Melbourne Storm and their players?
For the players there isn't much left to play for - except a representative jersey. Expect the Storm's stars to lift their games in the lead-up to the Test against New Zealand, and again before State of Origin as they aim to win the only competitions available to them. Also keep an eye out for some seriously attacking football from them as well - it's not like they have anything to lose now, is it?
To survive, the club will need to take a leaf from the Bulldogs' book - but not the NRL's version. In the latest Inside Sport magazine is an article explaining how the Australian Football League's (AFL's) Western Bulldogs have taken the lead in the local community, with players making many trips out to local schools and sporting organisations to try and build grassroots support - something akin to convincing Eskimos about the wonders of snow. The only way the Storm will survive - and eventually thrive - is to take the opportunity now given to them and go out in a massive effort to build up some grassroots support again. They need to go out to schools, community organisations and local rugby league clubs and try and repair the damage an idiot few have done to their cause.
It may not work - it may even end up the proverbial selling of ice to Eskimos - but it would seem their only chance to survive.