What a great year its been for RL in Melbourne ...With my team already out, lets hope the Storm boys go all the way this year.... :P
Melbourne firmly in landscape
By Ron Reed
September 04, 2006 MELBOURNE Storm's campaign for the rugby league premiership moves into top gear at Olympic Park on Sunday, with Parramatta the first finals challengers. And won't that be laced with a delicious irony.
Parramatta is the quintessential old-guard, traditional Sydney club and its big-talking boss, chief executive Denis Fitzgerald, has made it abundantly clear that he regards a Melbourne club in the competition as a nonsense, almost an insult.
Fitzgerald, it probably should be noted, seems unlikely to author a how-to-win-friends manual.
In a recent survey, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney asked fans who was the club boss they loved to hate, and he romped it in with 46 per cent of the vote, 36 per cent more than the next candidate.
So obviously not all the bees buzzing around in his bonnet are coloured purple; he must get up a lot of noses, not just Storm's.
But Olympic Park is where he has to show his face at the weekend, and he can expect not just a hot reception but a crystal-clear message: Melbourne is here to stay, like it or not.
There is no longer any real doubt about that.
Finally, after a nine-year roller-coaster ride, which included a surprise premiership in the club's second year - 1999 - the question marks that still existed as recently as a year or so ago have been removed. NRL chief executive David Gallop said on Saturday night that the Victorian Government's decision to build a new stadium for the rugby codes and football was the catalyst.
Storm chief executive Brian Waldron is also adamant the club has come of age.
"We're here forever, we won't be going anywhere," Waldron said.
"We're being embraced by Melbourne."
Storm and the code in general could hardly have hoped for a more exciting, encouraging year in what the likes of Fitzgerald would call the heathen lands.
The State of Origin match in July pulled 54,000 people, 43,000 of whom are believed to have been Victorians.
And Storm has dominated the competition, winning the historic J.J. Giltinan Shield for the minor premier by 10 points, equal to the second-biggest margin ever.
That, naturally, makes Storm a hot favourite for the premiership.
The fans survey also overwhelmingly endorsed Craig Bellamy as the best coach and Greg Inglis as the next superstar.
It is a heady mix, with Sunday's first final likely both to fill Olympic Park and to attract enormous attention - and apprehension - in the code's heartland.
The old Melbourne-Sydney rivalry is always good for box-office business, as football proved again when 39,730 fans turned up to the A-League match between Victory and Sydney FC at Telstra Dome on Saturday.
Storm and Parramatta won't pull that many spectators, but the match will provide a sense of occasion that might appeal to some AFL fans facing a footy-fix vacuum.
Waldron says Storm is in the entertainment business, and there was certainly a lot to like about the show it put on against Manly on Saturday night.
Just on 14,000 people gave Olympic Park a crowded, colourful look, and the usual fireworks, dancing girls and the athletic antics of the Storm Boy mascot enhanced the atmosphere.
Five minutes into the match, Inglis demonstrated exactly why he is the next big thing by leaping high over a couple of opponents to take what would have been hailed as a speccy at Melbourne Cricket Ground, hitting the ground for a spectacular try.
The crowd, including many women and children, loved it - and knew why.
"The crowds are much more understanding of the game now," one long-time official said.
"When we won our first premiership, we were just a novelty.
"We're not any more."
If anybody doesn't believe that, surely a second premiership will get the message through. Even to the office of Mr D. Fitzgerald
