*Official* NRL 2012 Season thread

[BoyBrumby]

Would've said Graham was just acting under England orders but no Tri/Four Nations this year.

[Jono]

So many FB statuses from my mates who are Storm fans saying "FU NRL" and "FU Gallop" and "Take this one off us ****s" etc.

Didn't these fellas blatantly cheat, don't get it. Good on them for winning the title and coming back after such a huge hit to the club, but aim your hate at the administrators of the club surely?

[Ausage]

Originally Posted by Jono

So many FB statuses from my mates who are Storm fans saying "FU NRL" and "FU Gallop" and "Take this one off us ****s" etc.

Didn't these fellas blatantly cheat, don't get it. Good on them for winning the title and coming back after such a huge hit to the club, but aim your hate at the administrators of the club surely?

Completely AWTA.

Furthermore there'd be no way they'd have kept Smith, Slater and Cronk (the key to their victory) without cheating. Probably why they're not flinging hate at Waldron etc.

[uvelocity]

because qld rely so heavily on the combinations it makes the origin wins cheat wins too

[Mister Wright]

Originally Posted by uvelocity

because qld rely so heavily on the combinations it makes the origin wins cheat wins too

Lol! First good laugh I've had all day.

Had a pretty good win yesterday, picked Melbourne by 6.5 & Cronk as Clive Churchill medalist.

[vic_orthdox]

Originally Posted by Ausage

Completely AWTA.

Furthermore there'd be no way they'd have kept Smith, Slater and Cronk (the key to their victory) without cheating. Probably why they're not flinging hate at Waldron etc.

So why have they now when they are under the cap? Clearly they can keep them all, it's Inglis who got squeezed.

[Mister Wright]

Originally Posted by vic_orthdox

So why have they now when they are under the cap? Clearly they can keep them all, it's Inglis who got squeezed.

Yeah, there's a lot more movement at the Storm since the salary cap issue. Not only did Melbourne have the big 4, they had some very handy players around them. Now they have the big 3 and they players around them aren't of such high quality, but Bellamy gets the best out of them anyway. There's a few players moving on next year like Nielsen & Lowrie and a few others. When they were cheating the cap, they rarely lost players.

[Prince EWS]

[Ausage]

Originally Posted by vic_orthdox

So why have they now when they are under the cap? Clearly they can keep them all, it's Inglis who got squeezed.

It's easier to keep players for less money when they're already established halfway across the country from the competition, have "unfinished business" etc.

Truly believe if they hadn't cheated one of the big 3 would have been gone years ago. Why did they have second contracts if they would have stayed for less money? It's crazy to imagine that cheating had nothing to do with obtaining and therefore keeping the 3 best players in the game.

[speirz]

Originally Posted by Ausage

But what's actually wrong with 530? The transition from light to dark? Game falls during "dinner time"? (only people I've known to have set times for dinner are my grandparents) Both issues are so minor it's barely worth mentioning.

Just seems to be the biggest non issue for me.

It's easy to deride television ratings but what's wrong with maximizing them if there's virtually no inconvenience for the attending fan?

The biggest invonvenience I've had is definitely the food issue. It's not a major thing by any means, but once you've spent a full day on the drink and all you've been eating is horrible stadium food, it'd definitely be better to be done earlier. We ended up having dinner around 9:30 or 10, which isn't that late, but I imagine it'd be more of an issue for people travelling further or with small children.

[vic_orthdox]

I don't see how the cheating had anything to do with obtaining them, none of them played for another NRL team before the Storm.

[Ausage]

If they could have been kept for legal money why did they need second contracts?

There's a whole bunch of difficult to quantify benefits that come with assembling a squad like that too. The building of a "winning culture". Allowing management to choose what parts of the illegally assembled machine to shed. As mentioned early the "unfinished business" factor encouraging key players to stick around for less money.

Not wanting to take away what the Storm have gotten out of nobodies like Lowe, Proctor, Norrie and so forth. Just feel that anything this Storm team achieve will always have a question mark against it because of how it was put together.

[uvelocity]

101/116
87%
vs 1, 3 & 4 in the finals. amazing.

[Burgey]

That's an incredible stat, isn't it?

In other news, it seems the Bulldogs transformation to good sporting citizens still has some way to go.

[Ausage]

It's no excuse for piss poor comments but ffs the media had helicopters flying overhead and sent a paparazzi style team swarming at fences. Obviously the sexism can't be tolerated but the media are absolute scum and deserve the abuse frankly.