The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league team based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. The team is part of the National Rugby League, and play their home games at AAMI Park. The Storm have won four premierships since their inception, in 1999, 2012, 2017 and 2020, and have contested several more grand finals. The club also competed in the NRL’s Under-20s competition from 2008 until its demise in 2017. In 2018 they entered the in the Hastings Deering Colts u20s QLD competition.
About Melbourne Storm in brief
The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league team based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. The team is part of the National Rugby League, and play their home games at AAMI Park. The Storm have won four premierships since their inception, in 1999, 2012, 2017 and 2020, and have contested several more grand finals. The club also competed in the NRL’s Under-20s competition from 2008 until its demise in 2017. In 2018 they entered the in the Hastings Deering Colts u20s QLD competition. In addition, the club has also expanded into netball with a joint venture with University of the Sunshine Coast. The Melbourne Storm were originally a Super League initiative, created in 1997 during the Super League war, but following the collapse of Super League, the team became a part of newly formed, united competition. The first fully professional rugby league club based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998. In their first game, they defeated the Illawarra Steelers, with Glenn Lazarus as their inaugural captain. Melbourne, in a complete shock to the rest of the competition, won their first four games, before losing to the Auckland Warriors. They went on to make the finals, but were defeated by the eventual premiers, the Brisbane Broncos. In January 1999, CEO John Ribot negotiated a deal that saw Melbourne Storm games televised in China every weekend. Melbourne’s Premiership defence began relatively slowly losing their first 4 games of the 2000 NRL season, theClub went to the semi-finals in 2001 but were eventually knocked out by Newcastle Knights in the quarter-finals.
Between 2001 and 2002 the club’s on field performances waned, resulting in a 10th-placed finish in 2002. In 2003, Craig Bellamy was announced as the new coach of Melbourne for 2003, and in addition, a new captain in Kiwi skipper Stephen Kearney. Between 2003 and 2005, Melbourne consistently made the finals but lost in the semi finals which prevented them from reaching the grand final. It was also during this period that the arrival of young Queenslanders Billy Billy, Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk provided steady support to existing players. A notable incident that occurred during 2004 was the 18-game suspension of Danny Williams following a king-hit on Wests Tigers’ player Mark ONeill. It also provided the club with confidence of players in Matt Orford and Matt Orton. In December December December 2004, Stephen Keari, 21, was appointed as the Storm’s new captain. In the same month, the Melbourne Storm beat St. George Illwarra 20-18 to secure their first Premiership title. After narrow victories against the Canterbury Bulldogs and the Parramatta Eels; however, Melbourne once more faced St. George Illawarr, this time winning 20–18 and securing the first Premiership. The team was beaten convincingly 34–10 in the Quarter-final by St. George Illawarra. In 2007, Melbourne stripped of the 2007 and 2009 premiership following salary cap breaches. Former Brisbane Broncos centre Chris Johns became the CEO of the club.
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This page is based on the article Melbourne Storm published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 25, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
