Storm replace Sea Eagles as the team we love to hate
Article from: The Courier-Mail
Robert Craddock
September 29, 2008 12:00am
CAN you do it? Can you shout those two words which have been forever blacklisted from your sporting vocabulary . . . 'Go Manly'?
Sadly, that's what the rugby league season has come down to for thousands of disillusioned fans and it is a desperate state of affairs.
For the first time in a sportwatching life I find myself at peace with the prospect of the dreaded Manly, the team we all loathe, winning the rugby league grand final.
And it's not because I have the slightest bit of affection for the Sea Eagles.
It's just that fellow grand finalist Melbourne Storm has become a total pain in the southern hemisphere.
Storm officials and players have become such champion whingers that even a grand final win may not placate them.
There's every chance they could accept the trophy on Sunday night then give the world a sermon on how they still feel wronged, compromised and cheated ... don't put it past Melbourne.
It could be the only sporting team in history whose tears on the victory dais could come not from sheer joy but the fact that it still feels persecuted.
Melbourne used to be many people's second favourite team, the cheeky over-achievers with the strong Queensland flavour. The team you couldn't dislike.
But its siege mentality has become so deep-seated that if coach Craig Bellamy saw Santa Claus come down his chimney on Christmas Day his first words would probably be, "sorry mate this is a closed session ...and don't give me that crap about goodwill to all men".
It's sad for Melbourne that at a time when people should be rejoicing over its achievement in making three grand finals in a row from AFL heartland, the club is leaving many people cold. Bellamy said after his side's pulsating finals win over Brisbane he thought his head was going to explode.
A week later, after Friday night's nonsensical outburst which cost his club $50,000, it sounded as if his head must have exploded some time between games and Melbourne staff did the worst patch-up job since Humpty Dumpty trying to put it back together.
Bellamy and hot-blooded Storm chief executive Brian Waldron knew that by blasting league officials over the Cameron Smith case, and effectively suggesting they were robbed, they stood every chance of being heavily fined.
So they subscribed to the John McEnroe theory that if you are going to go down you might as well bring out the heavy artillery and do it in style.
Bellamy made the occasional fair point but the impact of any logical observation was lost in the hysterical delivery.
Bellamy claimed some journalists had a vendetta over grapple tackles, and he has become obsessed about the fact others have got away with the type of tackle that rubbed Smith out of the grand final.
The Storm even handed out DVDs showing as much at its Friday press conference.
The point was fair enough - others have got away with as much - but what Smith did was still wrong.
It's a bit like being the unlucky motorist nabbed at a stop sign by a lurking police car when you know dozens of others got through unscathed.
Protest all you like but you broke rules just as clearly as Smith did.
That's why, in the betting market Bellamy alluded to, Smith was $1.18 to be suspended and $4.25 to escape.
Bellamy said the betting market had a "smelly" sense about it.
It didn't. It was based on common sense, not inside knowledge. Once nabbed, Smith was certain to get a stretch because there was no way out.
In any case it was just one of those lightweight novelty markets bookies put out to promote themselves, not one shaped by a huge volume of money.
If you had waved a few $100 notes in front of that bookmaker's nose he would probably have fallen off his stand.
The great plus for Bellamy's outburst is that his team will love it.
The Storm is a great team but some of its players are tiring. They need a lift.
They know that no matter what happens to them their coach is behind them in good times and bad. It's a nice platform for a coach entering grand final week.
The extraordinary size of the fine against the Storm came after NRL boss David Gallop was concerned about the image of the game being tarnished by some seriously wayward accusations.
He shouldn't have worried. The sporting public has become almost desensitised to the grumblings of league coaches.
There is so much griping and whingeing going on that people find it hard to tell who is making sense.
