http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...urne-should-expect-barrage-20100516-v6gq.html
Welcome to Sydney, enjoy your spray: Melbourne should expect barrage
BRAD WALTER
May 17, 2010
PARRAMATTA officials are unconcerned about potential crowd trouble when the beaten 2009 grand finalists become the first Sydney team to host Melbourne since the salary cap scandal that has engulfed the club.
Melbourne players were subjected to chants of ''cheats, cheats, cheats'' during Saturday night's defeat of the Raiders at Canberra Stadium and the hostility is expected to worsen when they visit Parramatta Stadium on June 4, with many Eels fans believing their club was robbed of last year's premiership by a team deliberately operating above the NRL's $4.1 million salary cap.
By then the Storm could be playing for competition points if the four independent directors of the club taking legal action over the decision to strip Melbourne of the 2007 and 2009 premierships succeed in gaining an injunction against all penalties imposed by the NRL until the court case is completed.
If all the competition points from games won this season were restored, Melbourne would currently be in second place ahead of Gold Coast on for-and-against.
The Storm have a bye next weekend and then host Canterbury at AAMI Park before travelling to Sydney for the first time since the $1.85 million in rorts were exposed to play the Eels.
Despite stripping the titles won by the Storm since 2006, the NRL has not awarded them to Parramatta and 2007 grand finalists Manly. But Eels and Sea Eagles fans believe their teams were wrongly denied premierships by Melbourne and are expected to vent their fury when the Storm play at Parramatta and Brookvale Oval, in round 22.
Whereas Canberra supporters taunted Storm players by waving $20 and $50 notes at them, Eels fans threw coins in the direction of the Manly bench and booed loudly every time Jamie Lyon touched the ball when the Test centre returned to Parramatta Stadium in 2007 for the first time since quitting the club three years earlier.
However, Parramatta chief executive Paul Osborne said he wasn't anticipating a repeat of those scenes when the Eels host Melbourne and the club has no plans to step up security at this stage. ''I think the Melbourne players are probably going to have get used to copping a bit from the fans of other teams for the rest of the season but I'd like to think our supporters are a bit more subdued than the Raiders fans. I don't think we've got any worries,'' he said.
With South Sydney and the Bulldogs transferring their home games against Melbourne interstate, the only other times the Storm will play in Sydney this season be against Manly and Wests Tigers in round 25.
Storm stars Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Greg Inglis and Cooper Cronk are likely to play for Queensland at ANZ Stadium in Origin I on May 26. ''Origin is Origin,'' NSWRL boss Geoff Carr said. ''If you play in Sydney and you are wearing a Queensland jersey the fans are probably going to give you a hard time anyway.''
