I guess as a Storm fan i see a GF win as the start of a new era, i understand other fans frustration and i know how i'd feel if we were to lose to a team cheating the rules, but even you must admire the determination and grit shown by this new squad of players, the rise from adversity from for all you & i know could possibly be innocent players/coaches in this whole fiasco.
I mean people say we didn't really get punished yet we were (rightfully) stripped of 2 premierships and 3 MP, fined $1.5 million dollars, made to play for nothing all year, heckled, abused, laughed at. For 18 months i've personally been abused for standing by my team, even though i've never condoned what we did. Yet other fan's want me to apoligise? We are innocent bystanders like you, except we have to live with the cast shadow over us, just for supporting our footy team.
At the start of the year when we ran out with our rookie 20's like Duffie, O'Neill, Widdop, Bromwich & Proctor along with "Nuffie's" no other club wanted like Woolnough, Lowe, M.Blair, Norrie, Lowrie, Kostjasyn, Waqa etc nobody gave us a chance of doing anything this year, and i think if we ran 10th no one would care, it's because were 1st it irratates people.
I don't know what we can do as a club to show were ready to play fair, all the rats in administration have been weeded out and sacked, all the books are now level, we've gone through 18 months of hell, a large portion of people in the firing line have been innocent people like myself.
There's no smugness here, no siege mentality, i'm embarrassed and ashamed, we cheated the rules and denied everyone else a fair go, but i love my footy, and i will always support my team, and you will be waiting awhile if you think any true fan would ever apoligise for doing so. You say you wish we had downtime's? We as fans have had the darkest imaginable. You say were back like this never happened, this club and it's fans are forever scarred and honestly dude, it f***ing sucks, i just wanna watch some footy and cheer for my team.