Melbourne ramp-up Storm Academies in Queensland in bid to become junior development juggernaut in Sunshine State
While Melbourne will end their 27-year association with Queensland feeder teams, they won’t leave the Sunshine State alone, with the Storm turning up the heat on the Broncos in the battle for Queensland talent.
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It is the Melbourne masterplan designed to unearth the next Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk.
The Storm are ramping-up a development blueprint to become a juggernaut in Queensland to match the Broncos with a production line of talent that ensures Melbourne remain a powerhouse in the NRL.
As revealed by this masthead last week, the Storm are severing ties with Queensland-based Hostplus Cup feeder clubs Sunshine Coast and Brisbane Tigers.
Melbourne will instead field a reserve grade team in the NSW Cup next year, ending a 27-year alliance with the affiliate system that turned Melbourne into the kingpins of the NRL.
The Storm have been the most consistent team of the past two decades and the bedrock of their ‘Purple Reign’ has been unearthing two generations of Queensland young guns, parachuted into Melbourne under supercoach Craig Bellamy.
Melbourne’s Big Three of Smith, Cronk and Slater started together at the Norths Devils, while fellow champions Cameron Munster, Greg Inglis, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Harry Grant and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui spent time in the Queensland feeder-club system.
But the Storm are not dead-and-buried in Queensland. Far from it.
Melbourne are spreading their tentacles with a two-state, multi-tiered academy system, spanning almost 2000km, that will target the best rugby league kids in the Sunshine State.
The Broncos, Dolphins, Titans and Cowboys are Queensland’s four teams, but every NRL club is a market threat and the Storm are in the thick of the grassroots action.
“We have a great history of producing superstars like Cam Smith, Cooper and Billy and there’s some more to come,” said Melbourne recruitment chief Paul Bunn.
“We have some absolute rippers coming through.”
Few know grassroots rugby league like Bunn.
Regarded as one of the best recruiters in the code, Bunn spent 14 years working alongside Brisbane foundation coach Wayne Bennett during the Broncos’ golden years.
Bunn, who once signed Broncos legend Justin Hodges for $500, watches 60 games of rugby league most weeks.
Since joining the Storm in 2012, he has helped more than 30 players become Storm first-graders, including Josh Addo-Carr, Justin Olam, Nicho Hynes, Papenhuyzen and Munster.
Now Bunn believes cutting ties with their feeder clubs and strengthening their academy system in Queensland can make the Storm more successful.
The brainchild of Storm football boss Frank Ponissi, Melbourne will put their resources into academies on the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane before sending the best Queensland talent to a ‘finishing school’ in Melbourne.
World-famous strength-and-conditioning guru Dean Benton, who helped the Broncos to their last premiership in 2006, has been hired to train Melbourne’s best young talents.
“It is more efficient to have your own academy rather than your feeder clubs,” Bunn said.
“Frank Ponissi has done a brilliant job implementing this structure. Dean Benton is overseeing the strength and conditioning of our academy boys and the bloke is a genius.
“All the studies we have done have shown the importance of a single-source system.
“If you look at Penrith, they brought all their champion players through the single-source system.
“Guys like Jarome Luai, Nathan Cleary, Liam Martin, Matt Burton, Viliame Kikau and Stephen Crichton all came through the grades together.
“With our academy system, it means all our teams feed all the way through from the under-16s to the NRL.
“You can build your cohesion among your kids and get them learning your systems and the Storm’s style of play, so when they come through, their cohesion is through the roof in the NRL.
“The key to the success of the academy is training these kids in the Melbourne Storm way.
“We are building the pathways to keep Melbourne competitive.”
In the last two years, Storm academy young guns Cooper Clarke (2024) and Hayden Watson (2025) have been crowned player of the tournament at the Queensland Schoolboys championships.
“Within two to three years, you will see so many kids coming into the Storm and you will think where have they come from,” Bunn said.
“He will probably be a Queenslander but he will have been down there biding his time and building his skill set.
“We’ve made so much ground in the last few years with our Academy set-up.
“Any kid who comes down to Melbourne will be a pretty fair chance of playing NRL.
“I don’t know if we will ever find another Cam Smith, but if there is one, our Academy will try to find him.”
Originally published as Melbourne ramp-up Storm Academies in Queensland in bid to become junior development juggernaut in Sunshine State
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