NRL: The Melbourne Storm have conceded they are now the less experienced side as they prepare to take down the Penrith Panthers on the verge of a four-peat.
Six minor premierships, seven grand final appearances — excluding those during the salary cap scandal — and four premierships.An 18-14 win over the St George Illawarra Dragons in 1999, in front of a record crowd of 107, 999 fans at Olympic Park.Watch the best coverage of the 2024 NRL finals, with expert analysis and every game until the Grand Final LIVE with no ad-breaks during play, on Kayo.“There was a little section of Storm supporters and my friends made a sign saying ‘Geyer on fire’.
You could call it ‘internal belief’ or maybe there was some added motivation — Glenn Lazarus’ final NRL game. Adding to the Storm’s underdog tag was the fact coach Chris Anderson had pulled the trigger on a backline shake-up just two weeks earlier. “So for Chris and his coaches to make that call and then the risk of putting me in there — I was still in my rookie season as well. But history shows it was a bit of a masterstroke.”More on that in a bit... but first how did the Storm manage to get themselves into that position after trailing 14-0 at half time?“The first try they got through a grubber kick and the second one was an opportunist sort of try. But we knew we needed to change something because it was just not working.
So, back to that try in the 75th minute. Brett Kimmorley put up a cross-field kick for Smith. He caught it but was collected high on his way to grounding it and was knocked out.“We were lucky in the sense that we had Bill Harrigan as the ref because he wasn’t flustered by anything. He wasn’t swayed by anything, he was just going by the book,” Lazarus said.
“I had all these thoughts and ‘Lazo’ started to come over to me and I was like ‘there is nothing you can say right at this moment that’s going to help. “And then as I’m walking back I forgot my run up… then I got to the back of the mark and I’m just standing there and it was some feeling of euphoria that just went over me. It was like I went from ‘how am I going to get one leg in front of the other to get to the ball to go over’ to ‘oh this is easy, how can I miss this?’
“I’m looking around there’s not another person on the field… imagine being the poor security guard trying to say ‘sorry mate you can’t go on’ to him.”Lazarus’ immediate reaction after the full-time siren was “disbelief.” He actually got his faritytale finish. 1999 was a good year for Ross. He not only won a premiership, but also made his State of Origin and Kangaroos debut.
But on the eve of finals coach Chris Anderson switched up his backline by dropping his son, Ben and shifting Matt Geyer to five-eighth. That opened up a spot on the wing for Smith, whose only three games for the Storm that year were the semi-final, preliminary final and of course, the grand final. Moule’s decision came after a horror run of injuries which included three shoulder reconstructions, an ACL rupture and osteitis pubis. But he later came out of retirement to sign with a Super League club.
The PNG international played 144 games for the Storm and then finished his professional career with three years in the Super League. Currently, Geyer is a schoolteacher at Marymount College, where he is also the head coach of the senior boys and girls teams. Ironically, he’s now coaching Coates’ two younger brothers — and the son of former teammate Marcus Bai.The 1999 Clive Churchill Medal winner also went on to be crowned the Storm’s Player of the Year that same season.
Lazarus has dabbled in a variety of things from coaching to politics, but now he’s living the good semi-retired life in Canberra. He retired at the end of the 2004 season and has had stints at Super League club Catalans as well as some French rugby union clubs as head of strength and conditioning.Marquet won the ‘99 premiership on his 30th birthday! He left the Storm in 2000 to return to the Knights, where he started his career, and played off the bench in their 2001 grand final win over the Eels.
18 months later his world turned upside down once again when he shattered his leg in a motorbike accident. He had the decision of spending up to 18 months in hospital while doctors tried to save his leg, or amputating it from just below the knee and getting out of hospital in three weeks.
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