All other clubs have jealously looked at the Storm as the one team who have been able to consistently make the top four and be there in the grand final or the major semi.
This year they fell short again.
However, arguably they still have maybe the second/third best roster in the competition.
Now, I guess the obvious answer is that the big three are aging. However, I still think those players are playing well and continue to do well at rep-level.
My own feel is that the Storm's playing style, where most everything revolves around a dominant seven in Cooper Cronk is getting old and teams are managing to combat it because they're aren't enough points of attack.
For a long time now, Melbourne have got by without having a quality six. This year they attempted to make do with Ben Roberts. What that tends to mean is Cronk is at the centre of everything that Melbourne do (assuming Smith doesn't try and create himself). All of your creativity is very close to the ruck. It's very different to what Parramatta did this year, where the more width we played with, the more creative our options became, ending with Hayne.
There's probably a good lesson that football coaches have to be continually changing up their game. Rugby League is a game that is broken down to the nth degree and Melbourne have played their style of game for a long time now. Everybody's worked it out, and they have kept their big three at the expense of bringing in another different marquee player who might enable them to add a new dimension to their game.
I think there's a bit of a lesson for our coaching staff this year. You've just got to keep evolving your play and finding new ways of using your team that upsets the way your opposition defends. I feel that a lot of our success earlier in the year came about because we played differently. It was certainly a Parramatta that nobody had seen before and indeed nobody in the NRL was really playing a game like us. However, as the season went on I thought teams were working us out, and it was requiring us to play with perfect execution to break down defences.
IMHO, we're going to really need to add some strings to our bow during the off-season to help us break down opposition defences. There are some things that we very seldom too, or at least don't do well, like kicking behind the line for runners and hitting the defence with multiple runners. Some of that has to do with the limitations of some of our players but I think if we don't add to our playbook we're going to find what worked for us this year, may not work next year.
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Your right about teams working out our attack as was evident in the second half of the season, too much sideways movement with no inside plays allowd teams to slide on us cutting down Hayne's options. We had a great outside in line runner in Morgan but failed to use him in this way. I would like to see Hayne support up the midle more just like he did for that try off Gower and as he did in 09, we do have good go forward now so we should be exploiting the gaps around the ruck.
I do think losing Manu really impacted us. And Pauli Pauli's form tapering off a bit too. It meant we just didn't have the firepower on the fringes and I think the quality you have there is imperative in today's game.
I keep coming back that Pauli Pauli is going to be absolutely key to our future. Having that one giant that matches up above every player is so beneficial and if you look at most of the teams left, they have at least one. Roosters have SBW, Bulldogs Williams, Penrith have Idris, Souths have Burgess and Taumalano probably is just about there for the Cowboys. Manly don't really have one of those guys and I think its starting to show.
Hayne should be used as a decoy. All our points are created by him or when he's finishing off a play, despite being so heavily marked by defenders. If he was used as a decoy runner I think he would easily suck a couple of defenders in which would create room on the outside. It's simple and I'm surprised it hasn't really been developed. This is something that could seriously work for us.
Noticed in the majority of Parra games after the 3 SOO that Hayne just didn't pass the ball to supports after drawing in 2 to 3 defenders. Not sure what his mindset was but imo many tries or at least half breaks went missing due to this.
The remaining sides all have something in common,big experienced forwards and that's why they are all in finals football it's all good to have a "big three" and a spine is important but when they ain't got the players to go forward the spine lack legs!
The reason they are sliding is the fact they aren't over the cap by a million dollars. It's hard to stay at the top when you have to play by the same rules as everyone else.
Also I think we need people running lines/decoys rather than more people calling for the ball.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Which is what usually happens when attacking near the line.
Why the slide?
Well age and the salary cap has finally caught up with the Storm. The big 3 are that bit older, that bit slower and that little bit more injury prone. The Storm continue to base their entire game around these 3 so inevitably as the 3 become less effective so does the team. They still have their good days where everything comes together but they can't do it every week like they used to.
Also, no longer can the Storm replace one of their departing players with a current, front line NRL player from another club (it's called playing by the salary cap rules which is a new concept for them of course). Like the rest of us, well most clubs at least the Storm now need to settle for fringe first graders and club rejects. This brings mistakes and errors that the Storm just never had to deal with before. Dropped balls, forward passes, stupid penalties are now regular parts of the Storm's repertoire.
So whilst the Storm are still a good side and on their day still an unbeatable side they no longer have the class and cattle to win the comp. I hope they cling to the Big 3 for the next 5 years. Long may their slide continue.
As for the Eels, I completely agree. Our attack in the early part of the year was astounding. Then, other sides did a bit of homework on us PLUS we became a bit too obsessed with structured play particularly that backline play passing to the 2nd man. Our final game against Canberra was diabolical to watch for that very reason. We need to keep adding to our bag of tricks that is for sure.
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