Players deserve premierships: captain
STATHI PAXINOS
July 17, 2010
MELBOURNE Storm players were comfortable in their refusal to co-operate with the News Ltd-commissioned audit into the club's books and still believed that they deserved the premierships which have been stripped, skipper Cameron Smith said yesterday.
News Ltd boss John Hartigan, in releasing the results of the forensic audit on Thursday, revealed that 13 players - including seven who are still at the Storm - had been receiving payments outside the regulations of the cap.
Hartigan said no evidence had been found that the players or their managers had been aware of the illegality of the payments, but he had been critical that the players had not co-operated with the investigators from accounting firm Deloitte.
However, Smith yesterday said the players' stance had been vindicated.
''We were given advice at the time of those investigations that it was probably best that we didn't go in and have those interviews. At the time there was plenty going on, the rep season had just started and eventually the investigation was sorted out by itself,'' Smith said.
''That was the advice we were given and that's what we stood by. We like to think that we're given fairly good advice by the people we trust and at the time we did what was right for us.''
He was also unequivocal when asked whether the players still deserved the premierships from 2007 and 2009. The audit found that the club was nearly $3.2 million over the salary cap since 2006 but, when asked, Smith declared that the players ''absolutely'' deserved the lost premierships.
The players yesterday woke to a rumour that was spreading through league circles that they would boycott tonight's game against the New Zealand Warriors in Auckland. However, club officials moved quickly to quash the speculation as the team arrived at its old home ground of Olympic Park for a final training session.
The media was kept a distance away from the players as they walked between AAMI Park and Olympic Park, and was forced to stand on the footpath to take pictures and television footage as the Storm kept to its practice of closing its final session before a game.
The players, however, showed they had not lost all their humour when television networks countered by taking to the air and shooting from two helicopters. In response, the players lay in formation on the ground to spell out ''hi''.
However, they were in little mood to talk when they arrived at the airport to fly to Auckland. The players bore stand-offish body language and barely acknowledged the waiting media.
However, Smith spoke for the team and declared that the players would play out the year.
''We're committed to playing football for our club for the rest of the season and playing for the fans. They're the ones who have stuck behind us the whole time,'' he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/rugby-leag...erve-premierships-captain-20100716-10e9b.html
