Behind Melbourne Storm’s rescue operation of Billy Slater

Frank Ponissi headed to bed at 2.30am but struggled to sleep. Slater was playing on his mind. Operation Save Billy was about to begin.

Storm fullback Billy Slater and coach Craigh Bellamy at last night’s hearing Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

Melbourne head of football Frank Ponissi is dressed in thongs, jeans and a T-shirt, his phone at the ready. It hasn’t stopped buzzing since Friday night. Nor has ­Ponissi.

It is 10.30am on Saturday morning at the Melbourne Storm’s office in the AAMI Park precinct and tension is in the air. Chief executive Dave Donaghy wanders in and out of his office, his young son scurrying about with an AFL ball in his hand, begging his father to take him for a kick.

The Storm are preparing for a grand final but for the moment their attention is diverted by something infinitely more important. It began only moments after fulltime the night before as the tremors from Billy Slater’s first-half hit on Cronulla winger Sosaia Feki began to spread. Slater finished the game, conducted a round of interviews with radio and television and wandered over to Ponissi.

“Am I in trouble?” he asked. Ponissi asked why. Slater said he had been quizzed over the tackle on Feki. Alarm bells went off, the sense of dread only amplified when lawyer and judiciary whisperer Nick Ghabar sent a text message to Ponissi outlining his availability and some ideas if he was needed.

The Storm began to circle the wagons. Few do it better. Soon after, coach Craig Bellamy, Slater and captain Cameron Smith were making their way to the post-match press conference when someone suggested Slater’s tackle would become the subject de rigueur.

Smith insisted otherwise. In his mind, he had begun plotting ways to divert attention. His plan unfolded about 15 minutes into the press conference when he was asked about his own future. Smith delivered a cryptic response that suggested he may follow Slater into retirement after the grand final. Interest was piqued. Suddenly, Smith became the centre of attention.

Slater, sitting between Bellamy and Smith, looked as bemused as anyone. There was method to Smith’s madness. He had shifted the focus away from Slater and on to himself.

The press conference came to an end. The team grabbed some dinner and then had a meeting to map out their week. Ponissi headed to bed at 2.30am but struggled to sleep. Slater was playing on his mind. Operation Save Billy was about to begin.

Ponissi takes a seat on a weathered leather lounge in the Storm offices, allowing himself a short break on a frantic Saturday morning. He has been up since 6am. His mind briefly turns to the night before and the celebrations at the end of the game to mark the retirement of Cronulla lock Luke Lewis.

“To honour two great champions, we said whoever loses is going to get the game ball,” he says. “There was a box with a ball that had all the game details, not the name. The plan was if we lose Craig was going to hand it to Billy. If we win, I was going to get Billy to present it to Luke Lewis, because they are real good mates. I didn’t tell Bill before the game.

“So after the game I was trying to get him — he was doing a million interviews — to tell him do you mind presenting Luke Lewis’s game ball. As soon as he saw me, he said, ‘am I in trouble?’

“It never crossed his mind during the game and at the time. It was only when he started getting a few interviews and they started asking him about it. Even then I said, ‘no, why mate?’ He said they’re asking me about the shoulder charge. Then he heard people talking about it. He started becoming worried about it.

“Then I got a text from Nick Ghabar. I rang him and we said let’s just see the way it happens.”

Ponissi starts the day by heading to a coffee shop to begin piecing together their plan. One of his first calls is to Slater to tell the Melbourne custodian not to hold his breath because during the season, the match review committee had been meeting late on Saturday to review the night before.

Ponissi has only just hung up on Slater when a text arrives from NRL general manager of football operations Nathan McGuirk to inform him that the match review committee will meet at 10.30am. Ponissi sends the text on to Slater.

The next time McGuirk makes contact is with a call. The news isn’t good. He tells Ponissi that Slater has been charged with a grade one shoulder charge, putting him at risk of missing the grand final.

Ponissi immediately contacts Slater. “He was shattered,” Ponissi said later. “But Bill went straight into talking about his defence.”

Ponissi’s next call is to Bellamy. Asked what he said, Ponissi replies: “You couldn’t print it.” Like Slater, the coach quickly diverts his attention to fighting the charge. Ponissi’s final call is to Ghabar, the prominent Sydney lawyer with a record of success at the judiciary, and they make plans for him to fly to Melbourne on Sunday. “The first person you always contact is the player,” Ponissi says. “Player first, coach second, lawyer third — that’s the way we have always done it.”

Ponissi’s phone rings again. Storm chairman and owner Bart Campbell is on the line to find out the latest. Ponissi does his best to paint a positive picture. Meanwhile, Donaghy has already sent NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg a text to seek assurances that the judiciary panel members will be protected from the outside world, where agendas and opinion will run rampant in coming days.

Another call is put in to Melbourne QC Chris Townshend, a friend of the club who has represented players such as Luke Hodge at the AFL Tribunal. He agrees to come on board. Meanwhile, Ponissi is trying to have Slater’s hearing moved to Monday night only to hit brick walls. The NRL’s prosecutor Peter McGrath is overseas and his back-up Anthony Lo Surdo is interstate. He won’t give up. His phone continues to buzz with messages of support and pieces of advice.

“Nothing we can do about it,” Ponissi says. “It just stretches it out for another 24 hours which we don’t need.”

The Storm spend the afternoon studying the vision and shaping their arguments. Before the night is out, Bellamy is contacted by former NRL judiciary chairman Paul Conlon with some advice.

“Regardless of the outcome on Tuesday night, we need a change in the rules,” Ponissi says. “If common sense prevails he should get off. But this is a legal thing. My phone has gone berserk this afternoon. I had about 30 people make contact, all with great intentions. Was there whiplash? Was there contact with the head? The rule has to be changed.”

Ponissi has contacted Slater on three or four occasions during the day, updating him on progress. He heads home late-afternoon and watches the other preliminary final between the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney. His head hits the pillow at 11pm.

Craig Bellamy is running about 10 minutes late. He has agreed to an interview with The Australian at his favourite coffee shop — Cafe 84, in the Melbourne suburb of Albert Park. No need to order. They know what he likes — Peking duck omelet and a large cappuccino.

Bellamy has spent Sunday morning at Storm headquarters, meeting with Ghabar, Townshend, Ponissi, assistant coaches Adam O’Brien and Jason Ryles, and Slater.

For 90 minutes, they study footage of the incident, dissecting the contact with Feki and what was going through the Storm fullback’s mind.

Bellamy leaves and the others keep going. They have a whiteboard covered in ideas and potential defences. Slater contributes as much as anyone. He explains that he has prepared for Feki to pin his ears back and go for the corner when presented with an opportunity.

Slater studied reams of video footage in the lead-up to the game and that’s what Feki has done all season. Few prepare as diligently as the Queensland and Australian fullback.

They notice in the footage of the Slater tackle that Feki steps off his left foot and raises his forearm at the last minute, forcing the Storm No 1 to take evasive action and look away only moments before contact. Slater is thrown off kilter. They believe the contact is unavoidable.

“I came out of that meeting today thinking I don’t know how Frankie and Billy do it,” Bellamy says. “He must be — burnt out isn’t the right word — he must be ­frazzled. I was frazzled coming out of it because of all the different things they are talking about, everyone has their different opinion. Then you have the stress of making the right decisions. It is just a lucky dip these days.”

Midway through his omelet, Bellamy receives a text message informing him that the NRL have officially rejected the Storm’s push to have the hearing moved to Monday night. Donaghy has already sent the NRL an email outlining his disappointment.

“As I said to the NRL, Christmas happens at the same date every year, so does the grand final,” Donaghy says. “Maybe they should put a hold on the travel schedule of their judiciary (prosector).”

Bellamy has his mind on other things. He didn’t sleep well after the game on Friday night. He found himself lying awake in bed, so he got up and made a cup of tea. Saturday night was better. He and wife Wendy went to a Jimmy ­Barnes concert in the afternoon.

Bellamy first met Barnes and the other members of Cold Chisel more than a decade ago. While Jimmy was a Wests Tigers supporter, it turned out his son Jackie was a Storm fan and Bellamy invited the pair to dinner in the lead-up to the 2007 grand final. A friendship was born and when Jackie called on Saturday morning inviting him to the show, Bellamy didn’t hesitate. He needed something to take his mind off the drama. “Best hour and half I have had for about three months I reckon,” Bellamy says. “He was outstanding.”

The concert finishes and they head to the pub for a quick bite and then home. Wendy turns on the Roosters-Rabbitohs game but Bellamy has no interest, at least not until Cooper Cronk suffers the shoulder injury that has left him in doubt for Sunday night’s grand final.

“I was in the background but I could hear a bit of it,” Bellamy says. “(Wendy) said Cooper was in a bit of trouble. I don’t know what she was doing watching it. I went over at halftime and a bloke was working on Cooper’s arm.”

Bellamy’s mind switches back to the present. He still finds it hard to fathom the charge being laid against Slater. The pair have been inseparable for more than a decade and Bellamy finds it difficult to rationalise the possibility that he could be absent on Sunday night.

“The main thing for me — he is trying to stop a try,” Bellamy says. “Feki is going flat out trying to score a try. What is he supposed to do? They’re playing NRL.

“No player is timid in that situation. You have to be going flat out. It’s not like you’re on the sideline at halfway. There’s a bit more on the line than that. You can’t just sit around feeling sorry for yourself. You have to do something.”

Slater is doing just that. After leaving the meeting earlier in the day, he tells Ponissi he has replayed the incident over and over in his head thousands of times. “I am ready,” Slater says. “Let’s go do it now.”

Ponissi replies: “That’s not the way it works, Bill,” Ponissi replies.

Slater ends the day at Townshend’s house, going over his testimony.

Bart Campbell got a call from Donaghy about 11am on Saturday informing him that Slater had been charged. One of the first things he did was put Donaghy in touch with Townshend. Campbell and Townshend met in unique circumstances.

“The guy I bought my house from when we moved to Melbourne is a chap called Vince Sammartino, who won the Melbourne Cup last year (as a shareholder in Rekindling),” Campbell says. “Nice fella. He is in a drinking club called Kew Largo — I live in Kew. All these reprobates, about 50 men, get together two or three times a year for a beer and to talk rubbish. Chris Townshend is in that group and he lives about 200m from me.

“Over the years we have become good friends. They both came as my guest to the grand final last year. They will come this year.”

Campbell, once a barrister in New Zealand and former agent to All Black stars Dan Carter and Richie McCaw, had little appreciation of Slater’s importance to rugby league when he moved to Melbourne five years ago to purchase the Storm from News Corp as part of a consortium that also includes CrownBet chief executive Matthew Tripp, Jayco founder Gerry Ryan and theatre entrepreneur Michael Watt.

He quickly realised Slater was one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. The other thing Campbell quickly came to appreciate was the sense, at least in Melbourne, that the Storm are much maligned, particularly in Sydney.

Like Donaghy, he was disappointed with the headline on the NRL website on Saturday that suggested Slater would miss the grand final. He sent Greenberg a text. “What happened to the principle of being innocent before proven guilty,” the text implied. “Suffice to say the headline changed,” Campbell says.

Ask Campbell what makes Slater such a much-loved figure in a town where AFL rules and he talks about more than talent. “Part of it is ability and the fact he is an excitement machine on the field,” Campbell says. “If you haven’t studied the game it is easier to see what he does in a game than arguably what Cameron Smith does, which is equally as vital to the outcome. But he is presentable, a good sort of a bloke, lovely family and humble.

“I think it is unfortunate that he was charged. We’re in this perverse situation if he had hit him in the head and it was dangerous contact, he gets off (with an early guilty plea). So because he didn’t hit someone in the head, he could miss a game. It is crazy. The rules don’t neatly tie together what they were trying to eradicate from the game.”

Slater trains later that day at Gosch’s Paddock, the club’s base next to AAMI Park. About 500 supporters are watching and Slater runs out to the loudest cheer.

The previous day he hadn’t been in the frame of mind to train. There was thought given to him sitting out the public session.

Slater’s son Jake is on the field, wearing a Storm jersey with the No 1 on his back. A small boy holds a poster thanking Slater for what he and retiring teammate Ryan Hoffman have done for the club. Bellamy would be happy — Cold Chisel blares over the speakers.

Donaghy watches training with federal Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie. Slater grits his teeth and puts on a brave face.

“It was good for him to train,” Ponissi says. “He needed to do that. It’s unbelievable to think a bloke of Bill’s status in the game could end like this. That’s been in my mind thinking that one of the greatest careers of all time and it could be over. That is amazing.”

Slater’s wife Nicole and daughter Tyla have been to a movie but arrive before the session is over. Ponissi is still receiving text messages and emails as the day comes to a close.

Among the hundreds he has received is one from sports scientist Tim Gabbett, complete with stick figure drawings of potential defences and the mechanics of the tackle. Slater won’t rest. Some of the text messages and images are from the Storm fullback. “The amount of work he is doing — he could represent himself,” Ponissi says.

It is the day of the hearing and Ponissi spends the morning on the phone going over the brief of evidence with Ghabar. They review more vision and still images. He speaks to Slater and they agree to meet at AAMI Park at 2pm, before they travel to Essendon Airport, where their private flight — provided by one of the club’s sponsors —leaves at 2.45pm.

Ponissi was initially reluctant to use the private jet, wary of the impression it would give. Then he weighs up the benefits and realises it is worth the effort.

Slater arrives at Rugby League Central at 4.40pm. He has more than an hour to wait. When it begins, the hearing lasts nearly two hours. Slater provides evidence for roughly 30 minutes, standing at one point to demonstrate to the panel how the tackle unfolded. He is compelling and convincing, at least for those in the gallery.

His fate ultimately rests in the hands fo three former players — Sean Garlick, Mal Cochrane and Bob Lindner. They take an agonising 54 minutes to reach a verdict. Slater bows his head with relief when Cochrane pronounces him not guilty, gets a pat on the back from Bellamy and shakes hands with each and every panel member. The Storm depart and return to their private jet, heading home for the night. Slater will sleep in his own bed. He will rest easy