DANE ELDRIDGE: Melbourne Storm’s desire to sign Zac Lomax goes against the NRL club’s team first culture
For a club that prides itself as not being about egos, this could be the beginning of the end of its famous team first culture.
Why are the Melbourne Storm so desperate for Zac Lomax, a footballer so itchy he could potentially request a release before he arrives?
Nobody doubts the appeal of the NSW rep’s abundant talent, nor the heights he could scale under Craig Bellamy and his correctional methods.
And, of course, the Storm could do with the extra backline coverage following Xavier Coates’ injury and the off-season departure of quiet achiever Grant Anderson.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.But no matter how high the pros stack, Lomax and the Storm still meld like anchovies in a milkshake — and not just in footy terms.
It’s nothing new for the Storm and Parramatta to stick the slipper in to each other, with both making an artform of fleecing each other over the years.
The Eels have recently lured Jason Ryles and Jonah Pezet away from the southern capital, although it was nothing on the withering gut-punch that started the rivalry when the Storm robbed the Blue and Golds of the 2009 premiership with a side so far beyond the salary cap it had its own GDP.
But for all their stoushes, the Lomax doozy has been quite the moose knuckle.
Once a club of ladylike decorum where the player approaches them and not the other way around, Melbourne has been so dogged for Lomax it’s even contravened rugby league’s Geneva Convention.
Beginning with polite inquiries between club bosses, talks have since surged in to dibber-dobbing, honey-potting and now the Supreme Court.
On one hand, the Eels are aggrieved at Lomax for returning to rugby league five minutes after promising he wouldn’t.
Agreed upon his release to play R360 to take up plastic money and a lonely life on the wing in rugby union, the West Sydney club is loathe to not only release Lomax, but to do so to a rival that still flaunts their 2009 trophy.
From the Storm’s point of view however, they are merely seeking to conduct their usual business of overhauling a Sydney offcut on the cheap to make us look silly.
This has not only triggered legal action from the Sydney club, but also a moralistic pissing contest over ambiguous concepts in rugby league like “what’s best for the game”, and even more ambiguous, contracts.
The Eels crusade is noble and one fiercely supported by rival clubs sick of their contracts being treated like glorified napkins, even though they all know there’s Buckley’s chance Lomax will be sitting out the season and they’d probably do the same as Melbourne if in a similar position.
But while this kind of warfare is nothing new, it’s the lengths the Storm are striving that has everyone shocked.
Once a club of ladylike decorum where the player approaches them and not the other way around, Melbourne has been so dogged for Lomax it’s even contravened rugby league’s Geneva Convention.
After failing with upped offers for compensation and even offering to pay Lomax’s legal fees, Storm bosses have since embroiled the NRL by secretly urging the game’s bosses through their sneaky back channels to “apply the blowtorch” on Parramatta to get their man.
This blew the toupee off rugby league not only because it’s unethical and kind of whiny from the Storm, but because it’s the desperate low-balling and strong-arming usually associated with grim Sydney clubs.
And even more inexplicably, all for a player who only 18 months ago agitated for a release from the Dragons, and when it was granted, did the same a year later at his new club.
So why are the Storm suddenly acting as desperate and dateless as the Wests Tigers?
After an off-season of tectonic upheaval and the sheer physical and emotional exhaustion of two straight grand final defeats, perhaps their system of principle is no longer adequate.
Melbourne realise they can no longer compete with the Brisbanes and the Penriths of this world with just a classy spine and tradesmen, and that’s why they’re selling out for something shiny.
As we know, the Storm’s team ethos is so egalitarian that you wouldn’t blink if the bus driver got a game at hooker.
That’s why for a club fiercely protective of its culture — think one that coolly shedded Brandon Smith and Curtis Scott and warehoused Nelson Asofa-Solomona in reggies until he took up boxing — it’s off-brand to move heaven and earth for a footballer who only hires a removalist truck so he can keep it idling in the driveway.
And yes, while the Storm’s demise has been signalled more times than Bellamy has drowned in his own spittle in the coaches’ box, this is the surest sign yet the club’s culture is not just at breaking point, it’s already decaying.
And never mind Lomax is as culturally mismatched with Melbourne as a jetski owner in the Sistine chapel, he didn’t even make sense in the team positionally.
Until Coates was injured, the only vacancy for the goalkicking ace was at centre — the position where he’s historically struggled — making this decision even more curious.
The five-day hearing between the warring clubs is set to begin March 2 — only three days prior to their now-unbearably juicy round one match.
This means Lomax is long odds to feature in this showdown — unless the Storm agree to hand over the 2009 premiership and call it even.
