Just got around to watching this, a few things that stood out
-the nostalgia was incredible, Chargers, Rams, Bears, Magpies, Steelers among others
-it also reminded me when i was growing up and the Storm were close to a second team (I used to be a huge fan of Marcus Bai, what a player). Melbourne seemed to have a decent following right off the bat. I guess this wa a partially because they were the new thing, but somewhere between 98 and 06 (when their dynasty started) things really dropped off.
-the general handling back then was pretty poor, so many tries from dropped balls. Goal line defence has improved a lot in the 22 years that followed. Some of those surfaces would be close to unplayable if they were served up today.
-the goal kicking was dreadful (clear to see what kind of an impact Halligan and El Masri had on future players, I would imagine most teams were kicking below 75%
-peak Joey was a hell of a player, however rookie Mark McLinden was also very good, shame he never fully fulfilled his potential
-the referees seemed to get a lot more respect, what happened? Send offs were also much more of a regular occurrence than I remember. Would have been at least 10 send offs over the season.
