It’s the Grand Final. Bon Jovi has just belted out a livewire version of ‘Living on a Prayer’. The crowd is in rapture.
And there they come, the men of the Melbourne Storm (booooo), down the tunnel, out on to the field. And YES – here they are, the Men in Green, the Canberra Raiders (yeeeeeeeah); marching out onto the turf for their first Grand Final appearance in 18 years.
Sigh. No.
That’s the Grand Final of my dreams. Back here in reality some band I’ve not heard of, lead by a guy who was a judge on a talent show is singing a song that seems vaguely familiar.
And the two teams coming on to the field include one I dislike – the Dogs – playing another that I truly loathe – the Melbourne Storm.
Not the Grand Final I had hoped for, but it’s League nonetheless. I have a feeling though that I will be disappointed by this Grand Final, and as the hooter sounds and the Storm players embrace, I’m not disappointed in my expectations of disappointment.
Then Gus Gould starts talking about ‘vindication’ for the Storm and I’m not only disappointed, I’m pissed off. That’s just salt in the wound. Kerosene on the fire. It’s like walking in to the toilet to take a leak and finding Alan Jones standing there, waiting. It just makes you angry.
Let’s get something straight. When you win by not cheating, that isn’t vindication. Winning by obeying the rules that every other team plays by does not redeem past actions. It’s simply winning. You get the kudos for that, of course. You get the glory of being the best team in one of the most competitive and tough team sports in the world: the NRL. That’s no small thing.
But vindication? Vindication is when you take a course of action that everyone condemns (for example, Galileo saying that the Earth revolves around the Sun) and then you get punished for it (in that case, by the Inquisition), and then you turn out to be right after all.
Look, the Earth really does revolve around the Sun! Vindication!
It means you were right in the first place. Storm was never right in the first place.
So nobody say vindication. While winning clean is forever, so is being a dirty cheat. The Melbourne Storm are the legitimate 2012 premiers. They deserved to win. Let’s leave it at that.
To the game: the Bulldogs were not at their best, that’s true; and Melbourne were the better team. But not one piece of luck went the Bulldog’s way. Not one referee’s call (not one), not one bounce of the ball, not one lucky pass. And maybe that one piece of luck was what they needed to spur a comeback, to change the dynamic of the game. For that kick from Barba to bounce Morris’ way as he charged toward the try line in the second half; for that last desperate pass to stick; to any number of small things could have turned the psychology of the game on its head.
But that didn’t happen. The Storm was just about faultless on all counts, including luck.
However, we do have one insight into how the Storm may have responded to a try by Canterbury in the second half. We know this because we saw how they reacted to the Dogs’ only try in the first half. Billy Slater was petulant, pushing, provocative. The rest of his team rushed in, gunning for a fight. They did not take it well.
Unfortunately, Billy Slater – after starting a brawl – ended up being bitten. Yes, bad form from James Graham and if he’s found guilty (and the replays don’t look good), he should be suspended, and for a long time. His mistake was choosing to bite Slater. What he should have done was given him a well-deserved punch in the mouth.
But that’s speaking about a game that could have been, not the game that was. The game that was, was not very interesting. The Storm were clinical, efficient, faultless. Not much fun to watch, but brutally effective where it mattered.
So the Melbourne Storm picked up their second (and second only) premiership.
Congratulations.
This article first appeared in making the Nut. It was also meant to appear in the 2012 NRL Almanac, but was cut by a censorious editor who did want anything negative said about the game (however truthful, apparently).