Quinn latest player to commit to Storm
The re-signings continue at Melbourne Storm with winger Anthony Quinn committing his long-term future to the club by agreeing to a new deal that will keep him in Melbourne until the end of the 2012 season.
Quinn is another key signing in the Storm’s quest to remain a force in the NRL for many years to come. He joins Dallas Johnson, Jeff Lima, Sika Manu, Adam Blair, Aiden Tolman and Cooper Cronk who have all put pen to paper on new contracts with the club this season.
Quinn is currently in the second year of a three year deal at the Storm having joined from Newcastle in 2007. In that time he has enjoyed tremendous success winning a premiership last year, and representing New South Wales in this year’s State-of-Origin series.
“The main reason for signing the long term deal was due to the success I’ve enjoyed since I’ve been at the club,” said Quinn.
“My girlfriend Frances supported me when I moved to Melbourne and she has settled in really well down here. We’ve bought a house in St Kilda and without her support I’m not sure I would have achieved everything I have at Storm.
“I’ve fulfilled a dream by winning a premiership and gone on to play representative football with New South Wales. I’m not sure I could have achieved that anywhere else.
“Given the players at the club and the coaching staff here, I can’t see why I won’t continue to have success at Melbourne Storm.”
In fact, Storm football manager Frank Ponissi says one of the reasons for re-signing Quinn to a long term contract was because of his improvement since coming to Melbourne.
“We feel Anthony has come along in leaps and bounds since he’s been here in Melbourne and we see him as an integral part of our team in the future,” said Ponissi.
“This contract is a big reward for his efforts, especially playing Origin football for the first time this year, and we wanted to reward him for that.
“He wasn’t coming off contract until the end of 2009, but we didn’t want to wait until next year to start the negotiations. We wanted to be proactive and tie him up to a deal before other clubs started to make a big play for him, as we’re sure they would have.”
The re-signing of Quinn well before his current contract expired is a conscious effort by the Storm to establish a settled squad for the foreseeable future.
“The plan going forward is to re-sign a number of players over an extended period of time,” said Ponissi.
“What we don’t want is to begin contract negotiations towards the end of their current agreements. The aim is to continually have a settled squad and ensure players are safely locked away well in advance.
“We are now in the process of signing the next group of players up over the next few months, and this will ensure that when we move into our new stadium in 2010, we’ll have a very strong squad of players who can bring further success to the club.”
