"WE'RE the Storm and we're No.2," Melbourne's suspended skipper, Cam Smith, sang on the team bus as it travelled from Homebush Bay, the scene of the club's greatest humiliation, to their hotel in Parramatta.
Smith quickly seized both the microphone and control of the team when he climbed aboard the bus and occupied the leader's seat immediately behind the driver. A year earlier he had sat in the same seat and sung the same club song, with one significant variation.
The Storm have a year to live with their No.2 status, a discomfort aggravated by Manly having achieved their premiership through the same principles of hard work and self-sacrifice that transported the three-time minor premiers to the top.
Significantly, the Storm player who took the defeat the hardest was lock Dallas Johnson, a man who makes up for his lack of size and skill with heaps of heart and hustle. Johnson pulled off his boots and threw them in the garbage bin in the dressing room.
"They're no good to me," he said in his throaty voice, as if discarding them could help erase the memory of the 40-0 humiliation.
The rest of the Storm players were in party mood by the time they reached Parramatta. Modern players are like highly paid musicians passing through - Generation Y professionals travelling to the next gig. The part-time St George players who suffered the previous record loss - a 38-0 defeat in 1975- were gutted for weeks. Still, what's the point of dwelling on a disaster? Furthermore, one-point losses carry the baggage of "if onlys", while 40-point ones are emphatic.
Storm coach Craig Bellamy could not be seduced by the thought the outcome might have been different had centre Israel Folau or five-eighth Greg Inglis scored early. "It wouldn't have helped much," he said, making it clear he believed the result was inevitable from the opening tackle.
The Storm coaching staff exchanged concerned glances from the opening set, noting a lack of commitment and power in the tackles.
"Too many games and too many things going on," consultant Matthew Johns said of the minor premiers' circuitous route to the grand final, via suspensions, grapple-tackle controversies, explosive press conferences and threats of legal action.
Bellamy highlighted defence as the single greatest contributor to the disaster, while conceding the kick-chase game was poor. "We put no pressure on them from the start and allowed them to run the ball back with ease," he said.
He didn't blame a pedestrian attack, yet his critics would argue the Storm's predictable offence did not tax the Manly defence.
In the debrief following the Warriors' loss, Storm players pointed to Cooper Cronk's reliance on high kicks to Folau to score tries.
"Why not use the hundreds of other plays we practise at training?" asked the coaching staff.
Yet the high cross-kicks to Folau reappeared as the only weapon in the grand final. Because Cronk allows himself to be involved in every play, directing the attack from the first dummy-half run, he hasn't time to organise anything other than a high kick on the last tackle.
Inglis, who was expected to take some pressure off Cronk, seemed weighed down by the added responsibility of having to assume some kicking duties following the suspension of Smith.
The Sharks had a similar problem the previous week against the Storm when half Brett Kimmorley was forced into being responsible for all the decision-making. Stand-in five-eighth Blake Green, drafted into the team following the knee injury to regular pivot Brett Seymour, trained well in the position in the two weeks leading up to the game but collapsed under pressure in the final.
Similarly, Storm hooker Russell Aitken fitted in to Smith's role at training, smoothly executing the routines, but stuttered badly in the decider. A 24-year-old who has played for three clubs, as Aitken has, rarely stars in the mentally challenging NRL, certainly not when expected to play two high-pressure games in a row.
It is surprising, therefore, that the Storm have invested so much hope in Arana Taumata, a five-eighth who has already played for the Broncos, Roosters and Bulldogs and has been banished from them all. Yet he comes with the strong recommendation of Johns, who claims he will complement Cronk, allowing Inglis to move to the centres to partner Will Chambers, who has recovered from a knee reconstruction.
"Arana is only 19 and hasn't been coached," one assistant said, thinking ahead to next season and the chance for the Storm to exact their own redemption.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff