FanPost

The Melbourne Storm are the NRL's Patriots

Melbourne Storm


The Australian NRL (Rugby League) Grand Final will be played this weekend between the Melbourne Storm and the North Queensland Cowboys. For the uninitiated, the Grand Final is the equivalent of the NFL Super Bowl.

The Storm have been very successful since joining the competition in 1998 - they have won the Grand Final four times and their players regularly feature in representative teams, including the Australian team.

The problem is, outside of Melbourne, everybody hates the Storm.

Which got me thinking - the Storm are the NRL's Patriots. Seemingly always successful, always treading the line of legality in some of the things they do and have been outright caught cheating on occasions. While they have won four Grand Finals, two of them were stripped because of salary cap breaches. They have always seemed to have more top-line players than they should be able to afford, and it was proven to be so.

Their captain and best player, Cameron Smith, is the Storm's Tom Brady. He has just broken the record for number of NRL games played (over 356 games), and has captained Melbourne, the Queensland State Of Origin team and Australia many times. He will probably retire as the GOAT, just like Brady. And like Brady, he is not popular outside of Melbourne (and Queensland, to be fair, since he's a Queensland stalwart).

The Storm's coach even has a similar name to the Patriots' long time coach - Craig Bellamy, popularly known as Bellyache. He's been very successful, but his tactics have been called into question many times, as they seem to skirt the rules.

So if any of you happen to catch the NRL Grand Final on TV, remember not to cheer for the Melbourne Storm. They will probably end up winning anyway, because they are unfortunately a very good football team.

Bastards.