I just find it amusing that you's are happy to take a premiership thats not beating the storm in the GF while Manly and Parramatta turned their noses up at it.
After 12 years and zero premierships I guess you were desperate.
And who is to say they would have even got there?
RL is a funny old game that way,
Even if they had, in light of the cheating that became obvious, would they even have deserved to be there?
No.
As someone else said, Brisbane don't seem to have any quarrels about their 2006 title despite not beating Saints to take it, and in retrospect (and considering which team stopped Saints getting to the 2006 GF) Brisbane probably would have needed to beat Saints to get it, the same Saints side which had beaten them 3 times that year, the same one which had beaten them pretty well no more than 3 weeks earlier.
However, do I begrudge Brisbane their title? - No.
I would have liked a rewind button in April to turn the tape back and see what happens at the apex of season 2006 without the storm there to stop Saints from getting to the GF, but it can't happen - and even if they got there is no guarantee they would have beaten Brisbane in the GF, just like the storm this year, they needed to get to the GF to start with.
As stated before, Manly and Parra did not beat them on the day, they were not offered the premiership rings in any way, shape or form.
Personally I think they are entitled to them given the magnitude of the cheating, but that is an issue for those clubs and the melbourne players, made difficult by the fact that not all of them took money under the table.
The storm were ineligible to even get near the GF, as they should have been for the previous 5 years.
Marion Jones beat quiet a few people in the 2000 Olympics, upon the stripping of her medals these were (for the most part) handed on to those who finished behind her, those that finished behind a filthy, lying f**king drug cheat.
Now are you saying that the people that came in behind her should have had to have not only beat HER on the day, but also BALCO's performance enhancing drugs to feel entitled to their medals?
I hope not, if so you are dumber than I though.
What the storm did is no different, they can sit on the sidelines and snipe if they want to, and by the looks of it you'll be happy to join them, but the fact is that they were excluded from the competition in April due to their cheating and were thus ineligible to compete in anything after the final round.
We saw how good they were in a GF when a few hundred thousand was shaved off their team (2008).
If they were to have shed players immediately after being found guilty (and remember all those increases to the cap and third party payments weren't in effect yet) they would have needed to ditch a sh*tload of player(s), they probably would not have made the GF due to being:
a) Without some of their best (Inglis would not have been there along with a host of others including White)
b) Absolutely f**king disjointed due to shedding 6 or so players and having to bring in the kids to make up the numbers
Exactly why you seem to think they represent the "yard stick" is beyond me.
They are cheats, plain and simple.
They are lower than low, not be emulated, looked up to, cited as an example or called "champions" in any way shape or form.
In fact I don't know what was more of a highlight in 2010, Saints winning it OR those cheating pieces of sh*t getting everything they'd "won" in the last 5 years taken away from them.
