Luke Buttigieg: Storm on verge of greatest triumph

With nothing but a minor premiership in the trophy cabinet despite their dominance of the NRL over the past seven seasons, Melbourne stand on the verge of what would be their greatest triumph if they can claim the 2012 title.

Standing in their way will, of course, be either minor premiers Canterbury, who have been competition favourites for the better part of the second half of the year, or the team most neutrals would like to see win it, South Sydney.

But considering all the water that has flowed under the bridge over the past 30 months or so, dating back to the dark days of late April 2010, there will be a real sense of redemption about Storm's build-up even if coach Craig Bellamy and his players will deny that is the case.

Yes, the club cheated and deserved to be punished for it but at the same time there was no hiding the fact that Bellamy and his 'Big Three' - Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk - were all devastated by the penalties Storm were hit with.

Despite being rated among the best couple of coaches in the game Bellamy was heavily criticised by all and sundry while not too many people north of the Murray missed their chance to get stuck into three of the biggest stars of the game.

Together with several other stars, including Greg Inglis and Ryan Hoffman, across the four completed seasons between 2006 and '09 they won two titles and three minor premierships as they made four straight grand final appearances and boasted an amazing 82-1-26 record.

But despite having all of those achievements stripped away and their integrity questioned along with their ability to recover from what happened, they somehow managed 14 wins from 24 games that year despite playing for no points.

And while many predicted doom and gloom they bounced back to claim last year's minor premiership before perhaps the emotion of trying to atone for the events of the previous season saw them suffer a shock preliminary final loss to the Warriors.

This year they endured a five-match losing streak from rounds 16-21 but Bellamy and Smith kept the faith and, armed with the lessons learned from 12 months earlier, knew it was important they hit the finals with some momentum after they had limped home in 2011.

It now comes down to 80 minutes against either the Bulldogs or Rabbitohs next week at ANZ Stadium when Bellamy and his lieutenants look to win a premiership that would surely mean more to them than any previous win.

And having dominated the competition so consistently as they built an imposing 135-1-49 record since the start of 2006, surely even their harshest critics would not deny them one title to show for what has been a run that simply has to be admired even if plenty have not enjoyed it.