Former NRL champion Greg Inglis has revealed the Melbourne Storm playing group have no issues claiming the premierships they won while over the salary cap.
The Storm were exposed as having been over the salary cap during their 2007 and 2009 premierships in the middle of the 2010 season, with the club then forced to play for no points for the remainder of the campaign and shed talent to get back under the salary cap.
The Victorian outfit have struggled to shake the tag ever since, with the NRL stripping them of both premierships.
Inglis, speaking on The Howie Games Podcast, said the playing group still feel like premiers, and admitted he has the rings from those wins at home.
“We still believe that we won those premierships,” he told The Howie Games.
“I just couldn't believe it. I was in disbelief, it was massive.
“As a player, you sit there and think about all the hard work you put in, all the blood, sweat and tears and the injuries you go through. For that to happen - the club did the wrong thing - but at the end of the day, we're all sticking together.
“To us, we won those and I've still got the rings at home.”
The NRL, in stripping the premierships, did not award them to their grand final opposition - the Parramatta Eels in 2009 and Manly Sea Eagles in 2007, and they have remained a point of contention ever since.
Inglis was one of the players to leave the Storm at the end of the 2010 season as Craig Bellamy's side battled to get back under the salary cap, and he revealed he thought it was the right thing to do as the last of the big names to sign on.
“When we were going through it all, I remember I was the last person to sign those long-term deals,” Inglis revealed.
“There was Cam, Bill and Cooper and then I signed. I thought it was the right thing for me to go and ask Craig [Bellamy] ‘can I leave to go elsewhere' and out of the tough conversations I had to have, that was the hardest, but I just said I think it would be easier for me to leave and find another club.”
Inglis went on to win a premiership with the South Sydney Rabbitohs in 2014, playing 146 games for that club to the end of his NRL career in 2019, retiring as one of the game's modern legends.
The centre, fullback and five-eighth was voted to the Storm's team of the decade in 2007, winning the Clive Churchill Medal in the same year, and went on to win Dally M positional awards at both five-eighth and Fullback in 2008 and 2013 respectively.
Inglis was also a member of the Indigenous Team of the Year, and was inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame in 2024.
