The 2010 Melbourne Storm season was the 13th in the club's history and competed in the NRL's 2010 Telstra Premiership. After winning the first four games of the season, Storm's season would hit a significant challenge after Round 6 when the NRL penalised the Club for salary cap breaches with the team unable to play for points for the remainder of the season. These revelations also saw them stripped of the 2007 and 2009 Premierships and the 2006, 2007 and 2008 minor premiership titles. Craig Bellamy and the players maintained an incredible focus to win 14 games for the year, the same number they achieved the previous season. That would have been enough to see them finish in fifth spot on the ladder. This season remains the only time Storm have missed the finals in the Bellamy era. Greg Inglis scored 11 tries to finish as the team's leading try scorer in his final year at Storm. Other notable players to leave included Brett White, Ryan Hoffman, Brett Finch, Jeff Lima and Aiden Tolman. However, there were several highlights during the season with youngsters Jesse Bromwich, Matthew Duffie, Luke Kelly, Rory Kostjasyn, Justin O’Neill and Gareth Widdop all bursting on the scene. Storm also played their first ever game at AAMI Park in Round 9. Ryan Hinchcliffe was named Storm's player of the year while Ron Gauci was instilled as Storm CEO midway through the difficult season and set about rebuilding the Club over the next several seasons. Craig Bellamy continues to be highly regarded for the way he led the Club throughout 2010 and had this to say when summing up the season. "When we found out it was obviously devastating and the year has been a drawn-out and difficult one ever since. But we stayed competitive, we unearthed some good kids and we conducted ourselves with dignity. For that I’m proud of the boys. It’s sad to see guys go especially given the massive contribution they have had to this club". - Craig Bellamy
Season summary
The Storm began 2010 by travelling to England to play in the 2010 World Club Challenge. This involved a warm up game against followed by the World Club Challenge a week later against Leeds Rhinos. The Storm won both games. The regular season commenced with the Storm defeating Cronulla away in what was the first of three consecutive away games to begin the season. The Storm played their first home game at Etihad Stadium against St George Illawarra in front of a crowd of 25,480 which is a record home crowd, excluding finals games. They won the game which made them the only undefeated side in the League after Round 4.
On 22 April 2010, the Melbourne Storm were stripped of their titles of 2007 and 2009 premierships and their 2006, 2007 and 2008 minor premierships following an alleged insider tip-off to the NRL auditing body that the club had been rorting the NRL salary cap. The club had a long-term system of keeping two sets of books, one set displaying players incomes' complying with the NRL salary cap and another hidden set in a separate room disclosing the true player payments. Following evidence of salary cap breaches, Melbourne were also fined a record $1,689,000, deducted all eight premiership points received in the season and barred from receiving any further premiership points for the rest of the season, guaranteeing them zero points and the wooden spoon for 2010. On 24 April coach Craig Bellamy publicly announced that he vowed to rebuild the shattered club, and welcomed the NRL's investigation into the salary cap rorting before a training session with the team which was watched by thousands of cheering supporters. Players were still allowed to play Test and/or State of Origin matches and for some of those players it did not affect Queensland's bid for a fifth straight Origin series victory. Later in the season the Storm were also stripped of the 2010 World Club Challenge title. The team's under-20s team was not affected. The Storm defeated the New Zealand Warriors 40-6 in the first match since the scandal was revealed. This was followed up with a 34-6 win over the North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville the week after.
During the regular season, the Storm will play their first three home games at Etihad Stadium before moving to their new purpose built and permanent home AAMI Park. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
