Chooseday Night Football on Fox - Storm vs Raiders R17 2003

[mattstormy]

Did anyone watch the Chooseday Night Football match tonight? It was the Storm and Raiders in Canberra back in R17, 2003.

The team were no where near as talented back then compared to what it is today but the Storm still won the match 18-8. In this match there were a number of ageing '99 Premiership players coming towards the end of their careers such as Marcus Bai, Robbie Kearns and Danny Williams and another one in Matt Geyer who was still in the prime of his career. There was only one star player in Matt Orford (who had a bit of a shocker in that second half kicking three kicks out on the full). Future stars Billy, Cam, Hoffy and Dallas Johnson were very young (all only about 19-20), journeyman David Kidwell was in his first season with the Storm and the rest of the team was made up with a bunch of no names and fringe players. Out of the team was Scott Hill (who back then was the only other star player in the Storm squad) and two other ageing '99 Premiership Players in Stephen Kearney and Rodney Howe.

Another interesting note, you can see how much this match from 9 years ago has aged. The footage wasn't widescreen, the Storm were wearing the navy blue with purple below the V design with large white collars (that was a great design - maybe without the lightning bolts it would have been even better), Clinton Schifcofske for the Raiders was still making sand castle kicking tees, all players wore predominantly black boots (a rarity today to see any player let alone all players from both teams wearing black boots), Cam had massive sideburns (probably because they stood out a lot more back then compared to today as they now blend in with his three day growth), Billy had curly hair and looked about 10 years old, Kirk Reynoldson's beard made him a cult figure back then and Bellyache wore Harry Potter glasses and looked pretty calm in the coaches box.

[mattstormy]

In this match there were a number of ageing '99 Premiership players coming towards the end of their careers such as Marcus Bai, Robbie Kearns and Danny Williams and another one in Matt Geyer who was still in the prime of his career.

I mistakenly said Robbie Kearns was a premiership player when he didn't play in the '99 GF, however he was an ageing player at that point (31 years old) and he was in the 1999 squad.

[Mattpoet]

'99 was the year he got injured in origin camp in a bonding session wasn't it

[mattstormy]

'99 was the year he got injured in origin camp in a bonding session wasn't it

Yeah I think that's what happened. It's funny that Robbie Kearns and Scott Hill (who both didn't play in the '99 GF) ended up being the second and third longest serving foundation players at the club (Kearns retired at the end of '05 and Hill went to England at the end of '06) behind Matt Geyer.

As mentioned above, Kearns was 31 in 2003 so that would have made him 33 (almost 34) when he retired and Hill I reckon was the player that should have continued with the Storm for a few more years instead of leaving after the '06 GF (he was only 29 so I reckon he could have played at least until the end of '07, although I think Bellyache wanted GI so desperately at five-eighth and was moving towards a youthful side and that's also why David Kidwell got shafted as well).

[KimmorleyKiller]

Kearnsy was part of the squad in 06', he was contracted for 50 cents.
That counts.

FYI - Semi Tadulala was not a fringe player, he is one of the great stormers of all time.