The Dolphins have had a few misses in the recruitment market, but they might just have signed their first captain.
The club announced on Friday it had signed Jesse Bromwich, with the Melbourne Storm stalwart to join Felise Kaufusi, Jamayne Isaako, Ray Stone and fellow veteran Mark Nicholls in Wayne Bennett's inaugural squad for 2023.
But while Kaufusi, Isaako and Stone could conceivably be long-term Dolphins, Bromwich is different. He'll turn 34 just a couple of months after the expansion side plays its first game in March of next year.
Bromwich is the biggest name the club has landed so far, and it has the bones of a solid squad, but there's still a long way to go. It's yet to land a slam dunk, a true superstar, the kind of signing that makes everyone sit up and take notice.
The Dolphins haven't found their Scott Prince, who changed things for the Titans when they signed him for their first season in 2007. Prince was one of the best players in the league at the time and he made everyone take notice of the new guys.
The Dolphins will sign someone like that. But in Bromwich they might have found their Glenn Lazarus, who was reaching the end of his career when he joined Melbourne in 1998 as the team's inaugural skipper.
Like Bromwich, Lazarus had won multiple premierships and was a representative mainstay. Like Bromwich, Lazarus had once been the top prop in rugby league but had begun to slow down. Like Bromwich, Lazarus turned 33 the same year he played his first game for the expansion club and, like Bromwich, Lazarus signed a two-year deal.
Lazarus gave good service to the Storm even though he was not the force of earlier times and ended his time in Melbourne hoisting the club's first premiership trophy in 1999. Asking the Dolphins to start so fast is setting them up to fail, but the Bromwich move is definitely an intriguing one.
Bromwich has been one of the best props in the competition over the past decade, and his style of play — which is less about size and strength and more about footwork, agility and body control — has become more in vogue through his long career.
But time waits for no man. It didn't for Lazarus, the best prop of the 1990s, and it hasn't for Bromwich, one of the best of the 2010s. Given Bromwich is 32 and has almost 300 games under his belt, that's to be expected. He averaged 100 metres per game in 2021, his lowest mark since 2012.
Despite that, Bromwich still formed an important part of Melbourne's middle rotation, with his passing and increased offloading offsetting his slightly reduced yardage — his 21 offloads were his highest total since 2016.
And while Bromwich might no longer be one of the competition's premier forwards, as he was in his prime, he remains a key figure in Melbourne's winning machine. It's worth noting that the former Kiwi Test captain was selected alongside Dale Finucane to take up the leadership mantle from Cameron Smith — perhaps the greatest rugby league skipper of modern times.
Bromwich and Smith are the only Storm players to appear in each of the club's grand final appearances since the salary cap scandal in 2010. While Melbourne's Big Three of Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk sucked up much of the spotlight, Bromwich has almost been as large a figure in the club's success — even the best in the world can't move like they want to without a few good forwards.
In signing Bromwich, the Dolphins will not be looking for the man who was the best prop in the world for stretches of the 2010s. They will instead be looking for the same thing so many clubs have tried to find by signing veterans from the Storm: They want a little bit of the magic dust that's made Melbourne synonymous with success even before Craig Bellamy took over in 2003.
The Storm is the most successful expansion club in the history of the sport, and that began with Lazarus leading it out for its first game almost a quarter of a century ago.
It's a dangerous game trying to buy what Melbourne has built. Plenty of teams have landed a Storm stalwart over the years only to discover that a Victorian veteran does not a system make.
What is certain is Bromwich will set an example from day one with his professionalism and work ethic, because nobody survives or thrives under Bellamy for as long as Bromwich has without those qualities.
Does that make him a candidate to be the Dolphins' first captain? Certainly, but it's not a fait accompli.
Bromwich would do a fine job as Dolphins skipper, on and off the field, that's without question.
But the Dolphins' first captain will be front and centre of the club's promotional push into the NRL, and while Bromwich has the gravitas to be that figurehead, the odds are that he's not going to be a Dolphin for longer than a season or two.
It's a conundrum for the Dolphins brass. In Bromwich, they have a proven leader but one that Father Time will be claiming sooner rather than later. Having him act as a deputy to a younger leader might be the better option.
But, of course, the Dolphins have to find that young leader first. Within the Storm's first two seasons, Lazarus's leadership was ably supported by Tawera Nikau and Stephen Kearney. Bromwich will need similar support.
If we look at the Lazarus example again, the play might be to give Bromwich an understudy who can take over once the older man retires, as Robbie Kearns did for Lazarus.
It's certain Bromwich will be there on day one for the Dolphins, but whether he's leading the team out or following another skipper remains to be seen.
