In the absorbing Stan documentary “Revealed – Craig Bellamy: Inside the Storm” we see the legendary coach seated delivering his final speech before last year’s grand final: “It’s just another wave in the ocean. But this is our wave. We ain’t gonna let them drop in on us. Go and get it. Let’s f#cking go and get it!”.

Compelling words and metaphor, perfect for a team that’s about to claim the premiership.

Except, it didn’t.

Instead, Ivan Cleary and his Panthers would claim an astonishing fourth consecutive title.

I can’t help thinking Bellamy watched that game in awe of Penrith. They are the modern incarnation of his perfect team. Dominance of territory through a dead straight defensive line, perfect contact in tackles, and powerful hitups; inevitably producing errors by tired opposition defenders and exasperated playmakers.

Bellamy had inherited the exhilarating running spine of Ryan Papenhuyzen, Harry Grant, Cameron Munster and Jahrome Hughes but deep down I think he knew he couldn’t beat this ruthless defensive monolith.

As is obvious from previous articles, I am a huge fan of the Melbourne Storm.

My pieces have reiterated the trans-formative effect on an ex Australian Rules player and fan when he wandered over one night in 1998 to the concrete and crumbling Olympic Park to observe, for the first time live, what I had previously dismissed as an unimpressively sluggish and ground based game from New South Wales.

https://www.theroar.com.au/2011/07/24/taking-the-hits-in-rugby-league/

I and many other Melburnians kept returning to the venue and the freezing elements, fog and lack of clear vision. A bond was forged with the game during those nights when we drank with players post match across the road among fans of all demographics and persuasions. I would stand there feeling a little embarrassed by my fandom. But it was special.

The following year we won the grand final.

The story of the Melbourne Storm, unquestionably one of the great ones of Australian sport, had begun.

The story has included all the elements of a compelling sports narrative: salary cap cheating, tales of opposition fear, hatred and jealousy, grudging respect, and unabashed mimicry.

More significant however is the undisputed establishment of the club as the benchmark. Despite the salary cap and wrestling controversies, other clubs have achieved success using the Storm as a blueprint; because, as unpopular a sentiment as this may be, ultimately it wasn’t salary cap cheating that made them successful.

They have been in a 117 year old elite competition for just 28 seasons and played in 11 grand finals. Since the salary cap punishments were handed down in 2010 they have made the preliminary final on eleven occasions. As Ivan Cleary mentioned in his auto biography: “That’s just ridiculous”.

And all but one of these achievements has been under the watch of a single coach.

However, there is a phenomenon – a grain of sand in the eye, a sliver of a kidney stone – ruining this seemingly perfect healthy profile of greatness:

NO consecutive titles.

History shows it’s an extremely difficult thing to achieve but why has a club with such a remarkable record of sustained success been unable to achieve it?

Even during their salary cap affected era when they made 4 consecutive grand finals and were well on their way to a fifth before the sanctions hit during the 2010 season.

The time they appeared closest to achieving back to back titles was when a brilliant team on paper won the 2020 premiership and in 2021 it was one of the great attacking and beautiful looking sides of all time who put the opposition to the sword on a record equaling 19 successive occasions only to taper off with sheer weariness and injury at the back-end, losing eventually in one of the great preliminary finals.

Potential rivals for greatness appeared but soon fell away. I didn’t have cause to feel worried that Storm’s historical significance would be overcome by another club.

But suddenly there came a serious threat: a horde of precociously talented and organised kids appearing out of the blue of the Blue Mountains to claim in four years the same number of premierships it had taken the Storm juggernaut 28 years to achieve.

It is difficult to believe now that on the eve of the 2021 grand final Ivan Cleary had coached the second most games without winning a premiership.

And yet, just four years later, have Cleary’s Panthers surpassed Bellamy’s Storm as the greater outfit?

Cleary’s autobiography published just 10 days after last year’s premiership triumph expresses his admiration for the Storm, describing the lessons he learned watching them suffering defeat against them and more importantly how he based and molded his dominant team on their style and culture. References to the Melbourne Storm are prominent throughout the book.

Even if the Panthers lose out this year – after five consecutive grand finals and four consecutive premierships – they have undoubtedly established themselves as one of the greatest outfits in history but will they accept perishing on the 2025 premiership slope and withering away? I don’t think so. They found a little nook to protect themselves from the elements for Round 26 knowing it would mean a longer route to the top but also that it would make them stronger.

This team is barely human, it’s a block of black granite that doesn’t care for your feelings. There are no linchpins to disable because mechanics don’t apply to it.

They find a reason to win, and will their way there.

Before they had even won their first title in 2021, they appeared cooked in the finals with chronic injuries to key players Nathan Cleary, James Fisher-Harris, Moses Leota, Brian To’o and Dylan Edwards, losing the first final, before scraping past the Eels and then Melbourne, clearly the best team in the competition, before winning the grand final through an intercept try.

In 2023 when Reece Walsh and Ezra Mam found their way through its black wall, they responded with the greatest grand final comeback. Last year’s grand final was all about revenge for 2020.

I want to loath them but I can’t help watching this extraordinary enterprise. Ivan Cleary took an eternity to win a premiership which is why he hasn’t yet been placed in the company of Bellamy and Bennett.

He borrowed from Bellamy but he has taken the austerity and singular focus of the Storm maestro to another level. Intensified and refined it. Yes, a gravy train of youthful talent and a relatively young group but gee what an achievement.

When Will Warbrick pulled off the match winning intercept on Friday night to put the Storm into their 16th preliminary final the glorious memories of Olympic Park were re-woken. The deafening noise generated inside AAMI Park at that moment is testament to one of the brilliant moves in Australian sport to introduce rugby league into AFL territory.

Melbourne’s reign has been a generational one while Penrith’s has been recent and brutal.

If they were both to fall away as powerhouses right now whose record would stand out most in the history books. Melbourne’s asterisked titles, multiple preliminary and grand finals, and on-off premierships, or Penrith’s big meaty block of titles staring you in the face.

Even for a Melbourne Storm fan, the latter is overwhelming.

If they continue to win this year these two dominant clubs will meet in yet another grand final.

Motivation for the Storm will be revenge from last year and to extend further its unbelievable run of success.

Unfortunately, for Craig Bellamy, Ivan Cleary has a greater goal.

Published in The Roar https://www.theroar.com.au/2025/09/17/melbourne-or-panthers-whos-the-greatest-in-nrls-modern-rivalry-between-ruthless-juggernauts/