Rugby League Week's Storm Season Preview
y STEVE MASCORD
WHEN you’ve climbed Everest twice only to be kicked off the peak and told you never got there in the first place, the mental application required to scale to summit again is not inconsiderable.
But if you were to beat the odds and get back there, how does one then motivate oneself – standing at basecamp in February – to repeat the gut-wrenching journey?
Those who doubted the Storm’s ability to defend their 2012 premiership would have been reassured by a surprise 40-8 pasting by Canberra at Simmonds Stadium in Geelong on February 8. Melbourne may be a success machine, but even machines break.
But the Storm’s mercilessly thorough preparation and conquest of the World Club Challenge against Leeds a couple of weeks later gave no hint of faulty nuts, bolts or moving parts.
Here was a campaign so impressive that it led Rhinos chief executive Gary Hetherington to declare Craig Bellamy’s men had – wait for it – managed to “restore the reputation of Australian sport in this country”!
Read on: http://stevemascord.com/2013/03/13/rlw- ... rne-storm/
WHEN you’ve climbed Everest twice only to be kicked off the peak and told you never got there in the first place, the mental application required to scale to summit again is not inconsiderable.
But if you were to beat the odds and get back there, how does one then motivate oneself – standing at basecamp in February – to repeat the gut-wrenching journey?
Those who doubted the Storm’s ability to defend their 2012 premiership would have been reassured by a surprise 40-8 pasting by Canberra at Simmonds Stadium in Geelong on February 8. Melbourne may be a success machine, but even machines break.
But the Storm’s mercilessly thorough preparation and conquest of the World Club Challenge against Leeds a couple of weeks later gave no hint of faulty nuts, bolts or moving parts.
Here was a campaign so impressive that it led Rhinos chief executive Gary Hetherington to declare Craig Bellamy’s men had – wait for it – managed to “restore the reputation of Australian sport in this country”!
Read on: http://stevemascord.com/2013/03/13/rlw- ... rne-storm/