Paul Kent: Storm star Cameron Smith’s fire to extinguish the opposition will burn right to the very end
The true marvel of Cameron Smith is his ability to maintain the rage 19 seasons into his career. Age mellows most of us. Rage wears us down. Yet Smith continues to find ways, real or invented, to keep it going, says PAUL KENT.
Opinion
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The joke around the Melbourne Storm clubhouse, at least in earlier editions, was that Cameron Smith kept himself a little black book into which he wrote the names of all those who had wronged him and, once inked in, those names never got out.
Smith, his teammates realised, had a pathological desire to conquer. One he could never let go, never douse.
It is not an unusual trait in the elite corridors of sport to imagine an enemy.
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Michael Jordan has become famous for coldly dropping friends for perceived slights, with no hope of return. For finding fault in opponents, real or imagined.
Close to home, Gorden Tallis actively created enemies whenever he played, even when there were few willing to volunteer for the role.
Tallis’s famous brawl with Ben Ross came about for no other reason than Tallis felt over a hot training summer that he was losing his authority in the game and so he told coach Wayne Bennett he thought he needed to have a fight with someone to win back his lost respect.
“Just pick someone big,” Bennett said.
Tallis, perhaps because his vendettas were physical, was always honest about his manufactured hatreds. Or perhaps, some believe, his vendettas were physical because he is so honest.
Tallis never had the time or patience to be subversive.
Smith, a contrasting figure, is far more subtle.
He has charm and cunning. His personality is warm and gracious but, as his teammates’ identified, there is a sliver of ice inside his chest that sits cold and unbroken.
He bends people to his will, opponents and teammates alike, often without them realising.
And he gives few clues.
For instance, Smith long harboured resentment toward the Broncos for failing to recruit him as a Brisbane teenager. His dream was to play for the Broncos.
Eventually, though, it became an annual feel good story, regurgitated every time the Storm played Brisbane because Smith managed to adjust the narrative from a burning resentment into a testimony to his talent.
Only once it began to be spoken about in such terms, with almost a humorous bent, was Smith comfortable enough to acknowledge it existed.
His falling out with Cooper Cronk, though, is an uncomfortable conversation and one Smith won’t acknowledge. For starters, to do so would acknowledge it exists.
What’s known is Smith seemed comfortable when Cronk announced he would relocate to Sydney and the teams favoured to win his services were the battlers, Wests Tigers and Canterbury, who would pose no threat to Melbourne’s dominance.
The moment Cronk signed with the Sydney Roosters, though, all communication ceased.
Cronk’s sin was to sign with a rival capable of challenging Smith’s team, a genuine contender, which ultimately happened.
Cronk’s Roosters beat Smith’s Storm in their first season as rivals.
This is what Penrith comes up against tomorrow.
Smith’s insatiable desire to not just win, but conquer.
The true marvel of Smith is not his talent or his longevity but his ability to maintain the rage 19 seasons into his career. Age mellows most of us. Rage wears us down.
Yet Smith continues to find ways, real or invented, to keep it going.
The most recent example was last Friday’s preliminary final when Smith’s admirers marvelled at his ability to turn and chase from marker and eventually wrestle Nic Cotric back from the tryline, an effort of 60m.
That, many said, was a highlight moment in Smith’s career. The competitive fire was still burning.
No slight goes left unchallenged.
Even last year Smith used the season launch as a moment to urge the NRL to return the Storm’s two withdrawn premierships after the club was caught systematically cheating the cap nine years earlier.
Smith was correct in picking up the discrepancy, but his logic was corrupted.
“The most we were over in one season was $500,000,” he urged.
In his case, it left unsaid that a backflip from the NRL favoured Smith, two wrongs made a right.
Penrith have so far stuck to the template to beat Smith.
When the Roosters beat Smith’s Storm two years ago, they did it behind a clear strategy to praise in public and bash in person.
Roosters players were not drawn on possible ways to stop Smith, knowing that even a hint would be enough for Smith to create a slight and stoke his fire to prove them wrong.
Smith is one of the few players in the game, if not the only one, capable of willing himself to a performance.
We saw it in 2017 when Smith declared after a disappointing State of Origin game that he was going to run more in the next game and then, having called his shot, went out and did it.
He was man of the match, the Blues simply unable to stop him.
Once on the field, though, the Roosters targeted Smith in ways that might, or might not, have been legal.
Having lulled Smith into a soft approach to the grand final, the Panthers next have to follow up the second part of the Roosters’ plan, the same as Cronulla did two years earlier, and punish him physically.
The Sharks had a plan that began with the back three returning the ball and targeting Smith on the kick-chase, followed by their big forwards targeting him, with Mick Ennis pointing him out each time.
There is a belief Smith told the Storm’s leaders some time ago that he will retire after Sunday’s grand final and that a vow was made to keep it highly confidential.
The simple question then is why, even as the Storm behave like he is retiring.
Some say it is because it will take Smith, who must control every environment he is in, to a place he does not want to visit.
They say he fears the first question at his farewell will be about his magnificent career and the rest will probe why, for one so obviously great, he is such a polarising character.
Smith won’t leave the game universally adored like his former Queensland teammates Johnathan Thurston and Cronk, or even begrudgingly respected like Billy Slater or Paul Gallen, who were honest in their flaws.
But then, if we have learned anything, he won’t really care, either.
Beware the rivers of gold
The sliding doors of rugby league success almost passed unnoticed this week.
Monday night, Ivan Cleary was celebrated as the Dally M Coach of the Year, an honour thoroughly deserved.
No team in the NRL era has gone through the season with just one loss, even if this is a shortened season, like Cleary’s Panthers.
Yet, as Cleary was being celebrated, Wests Tigers coach Michael Maguire was still struggling to clean up the salary cap mess Cleary left behind when he walked out on the club to return to Penrith.
Maguire has Josh Reynolds, Moses Mbye and Russell Packer — all signed by Cleary and all on deals that are so rich the Tigers can’t afford to keep them and can’t afford to let them go.
Their plight also comes as a small warning to players to beware the rivers of gold being offered by managers.
True, each received a significant upgrade on their previous contracts to join the Tigers, indicating a good job by managers, but it has also shortened their careers.
Such is the size of their deals they have priced themselves out of their club, unable to deliver the performance their salaries dictate, and unable to be traded because rivals won’t pay the freight.
It unfairly creates a stigma around the players, like a house that can’t sell.
Originally published as Paul Kent: Storm star Cameron Smith’s fire to extinguish the opposition will burn right to the very end