Couple of things on my radar this week — sometimes when I sit down to review a Storm match, a greater narrative starts to emerge. The first part of this week’s bye special fermented during a rewatch of the round 16 match against the Dolphins.
Part two has a few random thoughts that infiltrated my consciousness.
The natural order of things
Such is the way Melbourne have played under Craig Bellamy, the club has made the Grand Final nine times in his 21 completed seasons in charge. There’s three stints that have seen Melbourne miss a decider for three seasons running — 2003–2005, 2013–2015, plus the current stint from 2021. The Melbourne squad in that first stint were still learning how to play the system that Bellamy was coaching. The personnel were a mix of veterans aiming for a further shot at glory, or young talent that Melbourne has brought through via the Norths Devils. That mix found pay dirt in 2006 and but for some inexperience and outside factors could have won the premiership. It wasn’t to be, but the foundation built in the previous seasons were vital to the future success of the club.
Fast forward to the 2013 through 2015 seasons and, with the benefit of hindsight, Melbourne’s roster turnover (only five players from the 2012 premiership winning 17 were still in the team for the 2017 victory) did force something of a rebuild on the fly. At the time especially in 2014, Melbourne looked in trouble. Ben Roberts wasn’t the answer to the departure of Gareth Widdop. As good as Cameron Munster was, he wasn’t a fit Billy Slater at fullback in 2015. Melbourne’s points per game averages through this period make interesting reading:
2013: For 24.54, Against 15.54
2014: For 22.33, Against 19.17
2015: For 19.46, Against 14.50
2016: For 23.46, Against 12.58
That 2015 season is the low marker in Melbourne’s 26 completed seasons in attack. An anemic 467 points scored, lower even than the lost season of 2010 when the players had nothing to play for other than pride and charitable causes. The defence in 2014 also is an outlier in the Bellamy era to that point. 460 points against that season was Melbourne’s worst since 2005, with only the 2001 and 2002 seasons under Mark Murray considerably worse. The corrections came though from 2016 through to 2020, with the averages returning back to their usual levels under Bellamy. From 2021 through to now Melbourne’s attacking prowess has skyrocketed under V’landysball rules with 2021 and 2022 two of the club’s highest scoring seasons.
There is a trend (and a point) here though — as Melbourne has scored more points, they’ve conceded more points. So much so that the 2024 iteration of the Melbourne Storm is in danger of being the worst defensive team in club history since 2004. No Storm team that has made the NRL Grand Final has done so by conceding more than a tick over 16 points per game. After the 16 matches played in 2024, Melbourne have been hovering around an average of 20 points against per game.
The constant in the two previous stints mentioned — both times Melbourne’s defence has improved while not making a Grand Final. This time though Melbourne’s ability to stop opponents scoring points has disappeared. To the tune that opponents put up scores against Melbourne with enough possession to do damage.
A reckoning is coming. Doomsday is close at hand. Scoring points in finals has a greater degree of difficulty.1 A reliance on scoring isn’t a way to win the NRL premiership, it’s almost always the better defence that wins. These lines from the first Dr Strange (2016) movie have been playing in my mind:
Dr. Stephen Strange : We did it.
Baron Mordo : Yes. Yes, we did it. By also violating the natural law.
Dr. Stephen Strange : Look around you. It's over.
Baron Mordo : You think there will be no consequences, Strange? No price to pay? We broke our rules, just like her. The bill comes due. Always!
Bellamy’s teams have been built on a foundation of defence. This current iteration can score, but the structure in defence is somewhat porous. The natural law of averages favours defence come the pointy end of the season. There needs to be a rethink on Melbourne’s defensive capabilities should a run at another Grand Final be on the cards in 2024.
When I was contemplating this I did think about the fact that scoring has increased across the NRL since Melbourne’s appearances in the 2016–2018 and 2020 Grand Finals. The numbers though still indicate that to make a Grand Final appearance, a team should have their defence averaging at least five points per match lower than the league average. The outlier in the last few seasons being Parramatta in 2022 making the Grand Final with a very average defence, which was shown up by Penrith in the decider.2
As it currently stands ahead of round 19, only the Penrith Panthers (of course) and the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs fit this defensive success criteria to make the Grand Final. The Sydney Roosters are just outside the marker, and Melbourne face them in round 20 in what will be a big test of AAMI Park. After conceding 24+ points in six of the last eight matches, Melbourne will need to put in a massive defensive effort against the competition’s strongest attack in 2024.
Old man yells at clouds
Wayne Bennett — who hasn’t won a premiership with a salary cap compliant team since 19933 — was recently expansively quoted in a Fox Sports article. The 74-year-old former police officer4 was definitely in old man yells at cloud mode that day. He ranted on about referees, which to be fair everyone is these days, sin bins and send offs (including a very silly comparison with the AFL), and the Bunker.
Good luck Souths in 2025 being coached by Clint Eastwood Joe Biden.
Annual V’landysball stocktake
The legends over at Rugby League Eye Test put out an update to their set restarts analysis which makes for interesting reading. There’s a lot of information to digest there (Melbourne being more disciplined not to give away offside set restarts while defending their line is very interesting), so do head over and have a read.
The key reform that I would make to the current system is, as always, taking the personas out of the refereeing by bringing back the dual-referee system. Officiating is hard and the game V’landys purposefully made things worse in 2020 cowering to the 1980s nostalgia types by removing the assistant referee. The mere presence of the second referee was a net benefit to the sport, given it helped to reduce the apparent bias inherent when there is just one person with the whistle.
Melbourne not going to Las Vegas in 2025
The club did come out in late June with news that they had declined the obligation to be involved in the folly in 2025. That was confirmed this week.5
Praise be.
Now watch Melbourne be the away team in 2026, probably against the Bulldogs.
Olympics
With the Paris 2024 Olympics fast approaching, seemingly swimming in the Seine is back on the agenda, as well as the only good form of rugby union — women’s sevens.
Given the time difference, it’s going to take a lot of sleep deprivation to watch most of the events live,6 but this idiot has been doing that since 1992.
Allez Australia, bring home those beautiful gold, so-so silver, and shameful bronze medals.
If Brisbane could start building some venues too soon, that would be cool.
Jason Ryles
… he took the Parramatta job? Because being a Storm assistant coach and leaving to take the Eels head coaching job is a path to true success. Maybe Denis Fitzgerald should return to Parramatta and take the team to Iceland to promote beach volleyball or something.
Expansion chat
Following my previous bit on expansion, it does seem like the whole Perth Bears thing is a lock now that North Sydney have seemingly reduced their demands.
That though has sparked usually intelligent folk to bring back the cancerous idea of a Sydney/NSW conference for an 18 or 20 team competition.
Can we just not.
The reserve grade Sydney/NSW conference is one of the worst ideas in rugby league’s history. The unintended consequence of the other ten teams breaking off with a maximum of five of those teams to form a Super League (after kicking out PNG) would be inevitable given the imbalance that will occur. This would be one certain way to eliminate the suburban shitholes from elite level sport though, so maybe it’s not all bad.
Logistically though that would be a nightmare to schedule. The superior conference’s non SEQ teams should never play in NSW under this type of plan, lest there be some kind of fairness to the fixture and travel burden.
If we must split the competition purely for the sake of the fixture, perhaps an arbitrary line through the suburbs of The Bad Place is as good a place to start as any.7
What else is going on?
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading Regularly scheduled programming returns next Thursday with a preview of the big match at AAMI Park against the Roosters.
Ahead of that this weekend, there’s a doubleheader of sorts on Saturday at Coogee Oval with the Storm Jersey Flegg squad up against Souths (1pm kickoff). The Storm kids have struggled over the past month and Souths too have won just one match since May. Following that will be the NSW Cup match between the Bunnies and Bears (kickoff 3pm). At the time of writing no Storm contracted players will be in action for the Bears, so maybe everyone got the bye week off.
No scratch that, there’s a few familiar faces in the team list for the Falcons for their Sunday afternoon match in Mackay (kickoff 2pm). The Sunshine Coast boys need a win after their embarrassment last weekend and come up against a MOB in Mahe Fonua who is with the Cutters this year.
The Tigers face competition leaders Northern Pride at Langlands Park on Sunday (kickoff 2:10pm) in a match that non-Qplus subscribers can watch via 9Now. There’s a couple of Storm players listed for the Tigers in what will be a very tough match given the team’s form in 2024.
The Lightning should know whether they need to win or just play for damage limitation by the time their Super Netball match against the reigning premiers Thunderbirds rolls around on Sunday afternoon (first pass 4pm). The fifth-placed Mavericks face off against the West Coast Fever on Saturday night needing a win to jump over the Lightning and into the top four.
Origin on Wednesday night and the question needs to be asked:
Does Billy Slater actually want to coach Queensland?
The team selections are just odd. Harry Grant is injured. Ashley Klein is referee again. Queensland probably should lose, but who the fuck knows. Knowing the sporting gods, there will probably be some controversy that lingers long and overshadows the remainder of the season in some way. Enjoy.
We sadly saw that happen in the 2021 preliminary final.
That Parramatta scored their opening try against the Cowboys in the preliminary final off a blatant forward pass, then received the benefit of a sin bin to Jason Taumalolo during which they scored a try… just part of the lore of the Cowboys being screwed in finals.
If you believe that the 2000 or 2006 Broncos team had contracts that were compliant with the salary cap, there’s a bridge I’d like to sell you. It’s undisputed fact that the 1997 and 1998 Broncos teams were well over any enforceable salary cap. If you don’t understand how St Merge exploited the salary cap to construct their winning roster for the 2010 Clayton’s Cup, think more critically about that season and the following year.
ACAB.
My amusement will be off the charts should Penrith win the Grand Final or Wigan do the same in Super League. Pretty sure we can write off the chances of the three other NRL teams and Warrington — mainly because it’s never their year.
And we all know watching sports only works when we don’t know the result, otherwise it’s just scripted entertainment.
The Red Rooster line would form two groups of NSW teams:-
North: Manly, Newcastle, Sydney, Souths and Cronulla.
South: Penrith, Parramatta, Wests, Canterbury and Illawarra.
Put the Queensland teams and PNG with one group and the rest with the other, meaning at least the travel is slightly more equitable.