The Storm have won six minor premierships since 2011, and the game is booming in Victoria.
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Storm success sets a blue print for future clubs. WA rugby league is perfectly positioned to look and learn from the huge achievements of this club. Given the tokenistic approach to development in ‘affiliated States’ pre Vlandys and Abdo, WA rugby league can avoid the errors of the past and quickly move to a success based model around pathways, increased participation, while capitalising on all their own hard work up till now. The goal should be for WA rugby league to have over 10000 juniors, secured pathways and a clear WA identity within in ten years if not earlier. It’s their destiny. Maybe then this condescending patronising big brother Sydney centric approach of having to be aligned with a parasite can be condemned to the dust bin where it belongs.
Storms success was borne from having the major stakeholder of the game as their owner as well. They were able to set themselves up by stripping the best players from Reds, Mariners & Crushers to form a strong club from the outset.
They heavily recruited from QLD in the early 00’s and were able to identify and develop 4 of the best players of the last 50 years simultaneously.
After all that on field success it still took them 23/24 years to set up proper pathways that benefits the game in Victoria.
How they were set up initially to succeed would be incredibly difficult to replicate today because the game and the disparity between clubs has changed a lot since 1998.
Storms continued success has been tremendous.
But the true blueprint all clubs should strive for isn’t Storm. It’s actually Panthers (once they finally got all their ducks in a row and managed right).
Through Panthers Group they have built a super strong commercially sustainable model to ensure strength off the field and through their streamlined pathways and sophisticated talent identification development systems they have the best rugby league nursery in the world to ensure strength on the field.
Since Western Bears is aiming for 10,000 juniors it’s actually the Panthers model that they should be striving for. Not the Storm.
