Brian Carney: Melbourne Storm 'the most remarkable club'
"Everything about the club is class. It's a breeding ground for new coaches. It's a player improvement factory."
Monday 19 February 2018 20:42, UK
Melbourne Storm tore defending Super League champions Leeds Rhinos apart on Friday in the World Club Challenge. Brian Carney takes a closer look at the club's extraordinary culture.
Melbourne Storm are the most remarkable club.
They won their third trophy on Friday and are now Minor Premiers, the NRL champions and the 2018 World Club champions.
Everything about the club is class. It's a breeding ground for new coaches. It's a player improvement factory.
What I mean by that is, they are renowned for an incredible track record of bringing players in that perform at a five-out of-10 level of performance at other clubs, before getting a nine-out-of-10 level of performance from them in purple.
Interestingly, many players that fall into that bracket in Melbourne - those that improve performance levels vastly - frequently get noticed and bought for big money by other clubs, but often don't play to that level of performance again. Why is that? - This is the important point.
The players become nine-out-of-10 performers because of the culture in Melbourne. Because of everything that they do on and off the field.
It's worth noting the club has been on quite a journey in their 20 year existence. It's had some incredible highs, including a very early Grand Final win in 1999 under Chris Anderson, and then the lows of the salary cap scandal which saw them stripped of six honours.
The club has been rebuilt since and Craig Bellamy has been a constant in this. What he does year in, year out, is nothing short of phenomenal.
I'd argue there is no harder training club in the world of rugby league.
One example of what the club put themselves through in pre-season, and did in preparation for the visit of Leeds, is they go off on a three-day army camp.
Among the lowlights of this camp is running up 1000 steps near St Kilda beach three times, with the last of those done while carrying a heavy rope.
Also while at the army camp, players must walk for four hours in a large circle with a heavy backpack on, following attached glow sticks to see where to go and warned not to talk to anybody else around.
On the final day, the squad are brought out into the bush by soldiers hosting the camp, where they must stand on their own for six hours straight, talking to nobody. The players are directed to shout: 'Halt! Who goes there?', if they suspect anyone approaching.
After about an hour of this, all that can be heard is: 'Halt! Who goes there?', despite there being no soliders in the bush. It is the players hallucinating.
If anyone drops out of the army camp, they drop out of the club. That is the extremes they push themselves too.
I know of a promising coaching consultant who went down to Melbourne in preparation for their game against Leeds to work on defence. He was told they had already had a tough few days before his session, so they would only keep it light on the field.
The consultant told me that three hours later, after as intense a session as he has seen, the players walked off the field to finish. That was their idea of a light session.
Their hard work gets rewards and when your hard work gets rewarded you're more likely to go back and revisit it, and do it again.
It was said to me once by a Melbourne player: 'There is this aura about us in regards to turning average players into great players. But with many of them, we just make them fitter.'
A big frontrower who was doing 15 minutes can now do 22 minutes, and in that extra seven minutes he's on the pitch, he might get an offload away or make an extra tackle that he hasn't done before. A fitter player is a better player.
To prove the point, I would encourage people to have a look at the most recent photos of a new trimmed, slimlined Sam Kasiano, who is in his first season with Melbourne following his transfer from the Canterbury Bulldogs. He looks like a new person.
Another unique aspect to Melbourne's culture is that all new singings must spend the first two weeks working on a building site, while training at night.
Bellamy evaluates the people he has signed over that first fortnight. Kasiano, a New Zealand international and one of the most recognisable faces in the NRL, would have undergone such a process. No exceptions.
When a group works harder than everybody else as Melbourne do, they get the rewards, and ultimately you've got to be satisfied that it is deserved.
They lost a couple of big players after the salary cap scandal. This is a club, remember, that had the likes of Israel Folau and Greg Inglis in their team, and they lost them.
For the last six years they have been organised by Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater; the holy trinity.
Many wondered what would happen when Cronk left to the Sydney Roosters. Well we saw Cooper Cronk mark two in Brodie Croft and his performance against Leeds. He was superb as he slotted into a very well-oiled machine.
The classiness of Melbourne off the field could be seen in the pre-match WCC press conference when Bellamy, a man not noted for particularly enjoying these occasions, alongside Cameron Smith, gave thoughtful and erudite answers to questions posed by journalists.
There are sometimes question marks put forward about the Australian clubs' enthusiasm for the World Club Challenge but if anyone was to go back and watch that press conference, I would suggest Bellamy and Smith certainly played their part in pre-match promotion.
Smith has been called the most influential player of recent generations. And he's shown with his off field actions to be a man the game will certainly not want to lose when he does eventually retire.
While they continue in this vain, people coming from the Melbourne Storm organisation will always be in high demand. And some of the snippets mentioned above should give you an indication as to why.
They were worthy winners against Leeds, who for the first 40 minutes were certainly competitive. But Melbourne won't be dictated to, and after ramping it up in the second half, Leeds had no answers.
Elsewhere...
It was the first in a trilogy of fixtures from Down Under, and I thought the most entertaining was the second match between St George and Hull FC.
Speaking to some observers in Australia, it was Hull FC of the three clubs who impressed the most. They looked creative, inventive and threw plenty at St George.
It was remarked to me that Albert Kelly, in terms of his physique particularly, is barely recognisable from the player who left the NRL. He showed his considerable strength in his brilliant running game and powerful defensive game.
The South Sydney v Wigan game is probably easier to judge from the first half when the Warriors had more of their first choice players on the pitch for longer.
Sam Tomkins remarked in his half-time interview that what was damaging Wigan was their own errors more than anything. I concur, and due to the amount of changes in the second period, it is hard to asses either side in any great detail.
Whether or not the trip is a success will ultimately boil down to pounds and pence, and if the sums stack up, it is possibly something they will look at doing again.
In Super League, Hull KR v Catalans was a game of great importance for both sides but a great disappointment for anybody that was tuning in hoping to see anything that would resemble these clubs at their very best.
Catalans losing by so much while not playing well, and to a side who did not play well themselves, is doubly galling. Big issues for the Dragons.
Over at Widnes, in the words of Steve Price: 'Warrington's season is now up and running'. There would have been a dark cloud over the Wolves if they had lost again.
The Vikings showed enough in attack to hint at an improvement from last season. The incident involving skipper Chris Houston and referee Phil Bentham was utterly bizarre and we wish the official all the best.
All eyes will now be on how Wigan and Hull recover from their trip to Australia, with them both in action on the Sky Sports cameras this week.
Live Betfred Super League
Wigan travel to Warrington on Friday, while Hull make a trip to Castleford on Saturday. Following that match, we'll also get to see Catalans at home to Wakefield.
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Three intriguing games, and many more questions to be answered...
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