Making your own luck is a pretty corny thing to say, especially when it comes to sport, but sometimes cliches are apt.
After the Storm racked up 22 points and conceded none against the minor premiers in the first half of the NRL grand final, that word “luck” was thrown around so liberally that you could have sworn the Storm had flipped a coin and successfully bet on it landing on its edge.
By full-time, the referees were in Melbourne’s pocket according to the shouting on social media.
The fact is the Storm received as much luck as they deserved, because it all came down to decisions by human beings who knew precisely what they were doing.
When the Storm drew first blood with a penalty try in the fourth minute, it wasn’t because some mystical ancient Greek god of controversial decisions willed it so.
They stretched, bent and broke the Penrith defence to the point that Tyrone May’s only recourse was trying to kick the ball out of Justin Olam’s hands.
While there is poetic irony in the Storm benefiting from the rule after its creation was in no small part the result of superstar Storm fullback Billy Slater’s tendency to stop tries feet-first, that doesn’t mean it was the result of divine intervention.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.WatchDuration: 2 minutes 51 seconds2m 51sThere is precedent for this penalty try decision.
The only “luck” the Storm had in that instance was that Gerard Sutton had enough intestinal fortitude to award a penalty try for kicking the ball out of a would-be scorer’s hand, as the rules dictate.
But that’s no coincidence either. That knowledge and integrity is how Sutton got the job as the first lone referee in an NRL grand final for more than a decade.
And that pesky application of the rules came back to bite them, when Sutton had enough guts to sin-bin Brandon Smith for cynically refusing to let go of James Fisher-Harris for four seconds after “held” was called in the last minute.
Minutes after penalty Stephen Crichton ran headlong into Brenko Lee before Josh Mansour was sent over in the corner. His timing was off and the bunker got it right.
The Storm’s defence is designed to force rushed decisions from opponents. It worked.(AAP: Dean Lewins)
Suliasi Vunivalu’s 80-metre intercept try wasn’t the result of someone slipping on a particularly damp patch of turf.
Melbourne’s defence, as it has done by design all year, rushed up and in. Penrith halfback Nathan Cleary, who is still only 22-years-old and playing the biggest game of his career, got a bit wide-eyed and lobbed a bad pass that Vunivalu had an age to line up and it was his athleticism that did the rest.
And come the second half, Melbourne was on the back of the most patently wrong call of the night, when Sutton saw Isaah Yeo scoot behind decoy runner Kurt Capewell in the lead-up to Brian To’o’s try, but the bunker saw fit to overrule his on-field decision.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.WatchDuration: 2 minutes 53 seconds2m 53s
Commentators were stunned when Brian To’o was awarded this try.
There are thousands of decisions made before and during an NRL grand final.
Some of them are right, and some of them are wrong, but ascribing an unknowable force at work is to diminish the work of the parties involved.
And telling the Melbourne Storm they lucked their way into a premiership is particularly galling in 2020.
2020 wasn’t a lucky year for Melbourne
Every time Melbourne had a typically freezing winter’s day while Craig Bellamy’s team was seen training on a sunny 25-degree day in Queensland, the requisite “nice place to be stranded” jokes were made.
And while they were understandable, the fact is that these guys have lives and families and friends in Victoria.
The Storm were treated well on the Sunshine Coast, but they would rather have been home.(AAP: Darren England)
Regardless of how nice the beds are at the Twin Waters Resort, anyone who’s spent too long away from home will know that a hotel bed isn’t your bed.
Even straight after the final siren, on the biggest night of their professional lives (and for the unmarried, childless players, safely labelled the best moment of their lives) the players were unsure if they were allowed to embrace their loved ones.
A handful of their closest were allowed in the sheds, but the celebrations were certainly less effusive than usual.
The fact of the matter is, it was rotten luck that the Storm happened to be the only team from a state hammered by a second wave of COVID-19.
They were granted safe haven on the Sunshine Coast but have for months lived under strict biosecurity measures that forced them to stay isolated.
A lesser team would have cracked.
The Storm refused to wilt this year.(AAP: Dean Lewins)
This could have been chalked up as a lost season for a team that had been to three grand finals in row from 2016 to 2018.
Instead, Bellamy further cemented his legacy on the Mt Rushmore of rugby league coaches by polishing up yet more hidden gems, bringing the team together and getting them to somehow improve over last year’s preliminary final exit.
Cameron Smith confirmed he isn’t human by finishing off the Dally M voting in his 18th full season, while Ryan Papenhuyzen emerged as one of the game’s best fullbacks a year after being third in line for the jersey.
But none of that holds a candle to Justin Olam, who at the start of the year was a 50-50 prospect every time he carried the ball and was used primarily as a battering ram late in sets.
By the time the grand final arrived, he was a weapon on both sides of the ball, scoring the opener and coming up with a late game-defining tackle as Brent Naden tried to break down the right flank.
After 430 games, do you reckon Cameron Smith is relying on luck?(AAP: Dan Himbrechts)
To overuse “luck” when talking about the Storm’s fourth NRL premiership is to write off his work as being less important than the proper application of some niche parts of the rulebook.
No amount of horseshoes, rabbit’s feet or shamrocks can win you a premiership, and the Storm know that better than most.
Source:: ABC News
