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Down but still arrogant - "We're Still Champions - Kearns"

Parra

Referee
Messages
24,900
Message to Kearns - no you are not. FFS that is one message that shoud have got through.




http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,27027284-5018866,00.html?from=public_rss

Melbourne assistant coach Robbie Kearns reveals players' 'disbelief'

By Melissa Woods
April 23, 2010 Melbourne Storm assistant coach Robbie Kearns has revealed how tears had flowed when his players were told of the ramifications of the NRL club's salary cap rort.
A foundation player of 169 games and captain until his retirement in 2005, Kearns was at the players' meeting on Thursday when they were told they had been stripped of the 2007 and 2009 titles as well as three minor premierships.

"They're all in disbelief and are not too sure what to think,'' Kearns said.

"There was a lot of emotion in the room, as you can imagine.''

Kearns said regardless of the NRL decision to wipe their titles, the players considered themselves the champions.

He said they wanted to make a plea to the NRL to keep the record books intact: "To say they didn't win it, well they did.

"The boys played that day and beat those teams and won the premiership.

"Last I heard the boys said, we can't accept that ... so I don't think we've heard the end of that.''



The players and coach Craig Bellamy went to ground on Friday, with a club insider saying they were shattered and in no state to front the media.

Kearns said he didn't know how they would regroup for their match on Sunday against the Warriors and carry on through the season with no premiership points to play for.

"It's going to be hard, they've got a lot to prove to a lot of people, there's a lot of anger.

"I don't know how they'll go, Craig's a wonderful coach but this will be his biggest battle ever, to try and get the boys up for this weekend.

"Maybe the only thing they can do is try to play out the season and try to finish on top of the competition ...that might be their only reason for playing.''

He believed the players didn't know about the systematic cheating, to the tune of $1.7m over five years.

"I can't speak for them but I think they probably presumed they were getting their fair slice of the pie, they're not adding up the slices to work out there's more than a pie here.

" ... 99 per cent of people in this organisation have worked tirelessly to try and develop the game down here with integrity and respect and it only takes one or two and we've all been branded with the catch-cry of cheats.

"There only one or two in the club who have brought us to our knees which is really disappointing.''

AAP
 

God-King Dean

Immortal
Messages
46,614
nile-river-2.jpg
 

Eels Dude

Coach
Messages
19,065
Using that logic I could claim we won it as we were robbed. As were every other club. That's a hollow feeling for all involved. The players may still think they won the comp as a team, and so they should, but that team was contrcuted illegally and that's the issue here.
 
Messages
1,830
I think if the Storm are to survive, everyone in the organisation needs to realise that something was going on that enabled the Storm to be so far ahead of the rest and as such had an unfair advantage. Kearns shooting his mouth off does nothing but further damage a brand on the edge.
 

nqcowboy87

Bench
Messages
4,181
i can sort of see what hes saying. they busted their ass, that last extra rep on the bench press, that last lap around the oval, that last ditch tackle , that last hit up when theyr lungs where burning, those seemingly endless summers of pre-season trainning, sure they where able to be succesful fraudently but they still busted their you know whats, and if it wasnt for some greedy fat cats they wouldnt have had theyre very livelihood taken away, but as ive said if any players had knowledge of this i have no pity on them
 
Messages
17,822
Kearns should not have come out with this statement...

De Nile...bloody funny really even though I am a Storm fan.
 
Messages
1,830
i can sort of see what hes saying. they busted their ass, that last extra rep on the bench press, that last lap around the oval, that last ditch tackle , that last hit up when theyr lungs where burning, those seemingly endless summers of pre-season trainning, sure they where able to be succesful fraudently but they still busted their you know whats, and if it wasnt for some greedy fat cats they wouldnt have had theyre very livelihood taken away, but as ive said if any players had knowledge of this i have no pity on them

I honestly feel for the players. I don't think they had anything to do with the rort and I will believe that until porven otherwise but Kearns being quoted saying that is misguided and bad timing in the extreme.
 

Garts

Bench
Messages
4,360
Note to parra and manly fans you aint either

I agree completely, we did not win the game however the Storm did it by cheating. The players can say whatever makes them feel better but they won with a unfair advantage, its pretty simple.
 

Shaun Hewitt

First Grade
Messages
6,446
i can sort of see what hes saying. they busted their ass, that last extra rep on the bench press, that last lap around the oval, that last ditch tackle , that last hit up when theyr lungs where burning, those seemingly endless summers of pre-season trainning, sure they where able to be succesful fraudently but they still busted their you know whats, and if it wasnt for some greedy fat cats they wouldnt have had theyre very livelihood taken away, but as ive said if any players had knowledge of this i have no pity on them

Well said nqcowboy.
ASSUMING (obviously not know ANY details, so in total ASSUMPTION) the players didn't know about this, then yeah i really feel for them if they didn't about it. I mean, IF they were oblivious to this or not, the magic they performed on the field over the past 5 years or so has gone unmatched and IF they were unknowing of what was happening then they will be absolutely shattered.

I meantioned this on another thread, but the real losers in this situation are the fans which is very sad as the fans are innocent and loyal to their club and this is what they get back.
 

Ulysseus

Bench
Messages
3,610
Ummm, no they are not Robbie.

As for all this talk "what if the players never knew", wake the f**k up guys, we all have a fairly good idea on who was taking the money.
You don't get extra money given to you and not f**king notice it.
Any excuse along the lines of "oh, I thought it all added up and we weren't over the cap" given by any player found to have received the money should be cause for a bullet in the head for stupidity.

300 and 300 do not equal 450 when added together.
 

taxidriver

Coach
Messages
14,520
for the players that knew, everytime they look at those tats they will remember what cheating merkins they are
 

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