In the modern era where Club’s can easily be tempted to engage in bidding wars in order to lure big money recruits however that temptation is not one that extends south of the border.
Melbourne Storm prides itself on developing their own and the 22-man squad named for Sunday’s NRL Grand Final is perfect proof of that.
Out of that 22, 14 players were signed to the Club as 19-year-olds or younger.
Eleven played in Storm’s NYC (Under-20s) side while six were also a part of the SG Ball (Under-18s) squad.
Of those eight members who signed with Storm after the age of 19, five of them had played 44 NRL games or less before arriving in Melbourne.
Marika Koroibete (played 16 games for Wests Tigers) and Cheyse Blair (44 games for Parramatta and Manly) were two players included in this group.
Tim Glasby was once a part of Penrith’s NYC squad before being spotted by Storm recruiters two years later playing Queensland Cup football in Rockhampton.
However simply arriving in Melbourne does not necessarily guarantee that you will be handed a purple jersey, you need to earn it at this Club.
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That is proven by the fact that 20 of the 22-man Grand Final squad have played reserve grade for one of Storm’s feeder teams at some stage of their careers.
In a modern sports world where money is thrown around in pursuit of a quick shot at success, the Storm system is proving that even in today’s era, wins can come from within a club’s own four walls.
