As well as inheriting a liberal slice of Brisbane Broncos DNA courtesy of founder John Ribot, inaugural CEO Chris Johns and foundation captain Glenn Lazarus, Melbourne Storm’s immediate success was fostered on Canterbury Bulldogs’ gritty tenets thanks to coach Chris Anderson.
Premiership-winning winger Anderson coached the Bulldogs for eight seasons, including a fairytale grand final triumph in 1995, before heading south to lead the Storm’s 1998 NRL entry. While ‘Opes’ guided the fledgling outfit to an unlikely top-four finish in their first campaign, former teammate and brother-in-law Steve Folkes (the pair married daughters of Canterbury patriarch Peter ‘Bullfrog’ Moore) steered the Bulldogs from ninth in a 10-team finals series to the grand final.
Both teams asserted themselves as title contenders in 1999, each losing just one of their last six games with the Storm landing third and the Bulldogs fifth.
But Melbourne was humbled 34-10 at home by St George Illawarra in week one of the playoffs, while Canterbury grafted out a 12-8 qualifying final defeat of Sydney City – setting up a tantalising sudden-death semi at the SFS.
Anderson reacted to the defeat to the Dragons by axing his son, Ben, from the five-eighth role he had filled since Scott Hill’s season-ending injury in June. Matt Geyer, who had scored 18 tries on the wing, was the left-field choice in the No.6.
The Storm got off to a flyer on the back of a Bulldogs error. Brett Kimmorley’s audacious long ball put centre Tony Martin into wide-open pasture and cult hero winger Marcus Bai backed up to score the third-minute try. But quicksilver fullback Rod Silva sliced through for the Bulldogs soon afterwards.
The teams traded tries throughout the first half: Robbie Ross latched onto a Kimmorley grubber; Hazem El Masri scrambled over from a Darren Britt offload; and Geyer stepped through to give the Storm a 16-12 halftime lead.
The Bulldogs were foiled by two forward pass calls from referee Steve Clark, but they struck back as stalwart forward Steve Reardon sent centre Steven Hughes in. The blue-and-whites hit the front with 18 minutes to go when interchange playmaker Brent Sherwin – making his 11th NRL appearance – scored a dazzling solo try from a scrum.
The semi swung again from an unlikely source. Veteran halfback Ricky Stuart – who arrived at Belmore in 1999 and had played with all the masterful control that characterised his decorated decade in Canberra – miscued a grubber near the Storm’s line in the 69th minute.
The ball sat up for Geyer, who outpaced El Masri and the despairing ankle-tap attempt of Stuart on a 90-metre dash for what would prove the match-winning try.
“It was a crap decision to kick to the open side, you learn not to do that as a kid,” a disconsolate Stuart said after the 24-22 result.
“I let the team down today and stuffed our season.”
Coach Anderson, meanwhile, hinted at a Bulldogs influence in sparking the Storm’s turnaround from a demoralising loss.
“We’re only two years old,” Anderson explained.
“It’s a bit easier for Canterbury, any player that goes there goes into that tradition of lifting for semi-final matches. We’ve got to create that tradition.”
Skipper Lazarus summed up the mood in the Storm dressing room by saying, “We are on the verge of something special, I just hope we don’t let the chance go by.”
Two weeks later, the retiring ‘Lazzo’ held the NRL trophy aloft. The Storm erased a 10-point deficit to upset red-hot Parramatta in the preliminary final, before rallying from 14-0 down at halftime to snatch a dramatic, last-gasp 20-18 grand final victory against the Saints.
