As I sit here watching the replay, I’m a fair bit calmer than I was watching the NRL Grand Final the first time through.

A bit calmer but I need to watch it again just to be sure. I hope the confetti at the end is our financial records though.

I’m a big fan of the two Grand Finals on the same weekend. It’s like Christmas and Easter rolled into one except spiritual.

I’ve never felt a need to pick a side in the AFL/NRL/Union/Soccer debates. I’m a ‘I’ll have beer, wine and spirits’ kind of guy.

The Melbourne Storm has been a great passion of mine, encouraged by a friend who grew up in Newcastle. It didn’t hurt that for a large part of my time watching the Storm they were literally the best team money can by.

I travelled up to Sydney to watch both the 2007 and 2009 Premierships. And now the Storm have a fourth Premiership, I couldn’t be happier.

You may notice I say four Premierships. Didn’t the NRL strip them of two due to quite extreme and repeated breaches of the salary cap?

This is a good point you make but I’m not entirely convinced. You see I’ve never examined the books myself and the NRL can’t even get video refereeing right. How can we ever really be sure? Better just to give the benefit of the doubt, as the NRL would say.

This time though, it’s different. This time, I’m fairly confident we’ve followed all the rules. You could say I’m 94 per cent confident we’re ok.

The game itself was terrific with some of the best defence I’ve seen in a long time.

The Bulldogs deserve a lot of credit; they kept the Storm out for a long time. Many teams would have broken but they did not.

Now we have to address the alleged ear biting of Billy Slater by Bulldogs prop James Graham. Ear biting is a low and bizarre act. It is correct to condemn it and throw the rulebook at him if found guilty.

Yet we should keep things in perspective; it’s not like there has been a rash of ear biting going on. At our house it’s been possibly weeks since it’s happened and the last time was probably justified.

The success of the Storm however shows the importance of having a strong core of star players to build around. Bellamy’s focus on systems and process has got a lot out of his charges for a long time.

Both Grand Finals showed the importance of teams not individuals. It’s why the focus on tanking and drafting is so misguided. Both League and NRL and Football and Union for that matter require everyone playing together.

They are not basketball, where one big recruit can change your fortunes.

Well done Storm, you really deserve this one, and while you were celebrating, I hope you don’t mind but I just popped down to the club and did some shredding.

We’re probably keeping this one.