I remember once there was a train of thought that players would not want to play for the Melbourne Storm.
With the option of Living in Sydney, Brisbane or North Queensland and playing at clubs with bigger crowds on offer, who would want to go and play in dreary old Melbourne and play in front of 8,000 every second weekend?
Well a few years on and the Storm are a real players club. The type of club players want to go and play for.
The Storm are a brilliantly run club.
They have the best tallent scouts in the game by a long way. This is a club that has picked up the likes of Slater, Inglis, Cronk, Johnson, Smith, Hoffman, White and Falou as youngsters and developed them into stars other clubs are envious of.
They have an amazing culture of hard work, dedication and mateship that see’s them play well every week.
When they turn it on, they are unstoppable as their 40 point first half effort against the North Queensland Cowboys shows.
So with this new powerhouse club in the game it will be interesting to see what happens in the Victorian capital in the future.
The Storm have a brand new, made for Rugby League stadium on the way that will seat around 32,000 and will leave their current home ground, Olympic Park in the dust.
Coach Craig Bellemy is regarded as one of, if not the best coach in the game and the club has a great front office that is not only focused of Football but is also doing everything it can to improve its profile in Victoria but also spread the world of Rugby League in the AFL dominated state.
Its a great story after all the death riding the club has gone through in its 10 years in the National Rugby League.
They have one National Rugby League Premiership under their belt, a second Grand Final apperance last season and in 2008 you’d wonder who could stop them getting back to the big game in the first weekend of October.
They are one of Rugby League true success stories and just another reason why we need to look to expand the game beyond ite more traditional heartlands.
