Gone to Easts for a year and all would have been ‘forgiven.’
It’s all parochial bullshit.
Kind of…no, not kind of…completely pathetic.
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Don’t think that’s entirely true. Most Sydney siders despise Queenslanders no matter who they play for. Queenslanders playing for NSW sides get heckled and booed by their own fans some of the time especially ones who perform well in SOO 
I do remember going to a Easts game with my brother many years ago and it was when Hodges first went to them after the Broncos and the Chooks fans were giving it to him all game.
If Smith has spent a year or two captaining pathetic Brisbane, as I believe he should have, then he’d have been the NRL’s first saint.
There’s a bit going on here.
The parochialism (Queensland: Why isn’t he playing for us? NSW: I don’t recognise Melbourne as a team).
The fact that he is undoubtedly a personally prickly character.
The modern media which has gone from the unwritten to rule of ‘you don’t ■■■■ on monuments’ to…I’ll have the Vindaloo.
The timing of his retirement was…silly, and invited all sorts of speculation.
The whole…tradition of refs in the NRL being allowed to talk to players like they’re children, but captains are ‘allowed’(ffs) to talk to refs and Smith being the first to truly take advantage of that…
But all of that is trivia.
He was one of the greats.
And Every Team In The League would play him this week.
Absolutely one of the greats and most people would openly admit it and the ones who won’t would privately admit he is a gun.
Most of the dislike of Smith in NSW though is from his QLD SOO exploits rather than his Melbourne Storm association.
He would absolutely walk into any current team (but still might get heckled by NSW folk even if he played for a NSW team)
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A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but the Cooper Cronk move I think changed the narrative a bit.
I wish I had Cooper Cronk’s ■■■■.
■■■■ or wife are equally interchangeable.
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When they lost or things weren’t going well the Chooks fans turned on Cronk pretty quick and many of their fans still didn’t warm to him. He copped plenty of abuse on SM from fans
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Maybe so, but his post career adoration is extraordinary.
Let’s be real. Cronk is in the gang.
Smith and Slater are not, and never will be.
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Lol.
Forward as fark.
Never mind.
My bet would have been Storm 30+ and Smith to get a try.
Too late.
Goodonya little nugget.
Edit:
Serious 2000 vibes.
Anywhere, anytime, doesn’t matter who’s injured, who’s suspended…
If there’s even a contest I wonder what’s wrong.
The sense of entitlement is real.
Settling now. Hynes looking shaky
yeah that was poor defence
People I don’t even know scoring tries.
Total domination.
It’s almost embarrassing.
For me.
To watch.
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Reckon they need to get Papenhuizen back in the starting team. Not long to get settled
Canberra have won four of their last five.
And we’re making them look…unbelievably ordinary.
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They were at 10-1 tonight. Storm are crazy
I wonder if in 10-15 years time Jessie Bromich is gonna get the respect he deserves
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Lol. Apparently Canberra can run twenty metres in the time it takes to make a pass.
Respected internally.