THINK about all the things you know happens inside a footy club but no-one ever admits to.

Like, some weeks the boys are slack at training and that's why they lose. Or when your favourite mob of bum-sniffers, aerial pingpong purveyors or 11-a-side pansies can't make the finals any more, they don't try as hard.

Or perhaps the coach drops a bloke because he is leaving the club the following year. Or the players are so distracted by off-field events they stop listening to the coaching staff completely - and the coach gives up coaching them.

You watch your team every week, parting with your hard-earned. You know it's happening.

But no one ever admits to it.

The boys lost because they had plenty of commitment but their execution was down, not because they bludged at training. They aren't worried about the finals - they are taking it (yep) One Game At A Time.

And players aren't distracted by off-field dramas, are they? ''That's for the CEO and my manager to work out - I just play football.'' 

And all players are treated equally in the selection room - it's just that Joe Bloggs has some "niggling injuries". He hasn't been left out because he's joining the Snowtown Butchers next year.

Footy clubs have far too much to lose than to tell the truth. What if they make the finals through some mathematical miracle but admited weeks ago they were planning for next year?

When the whips are cracking, they will be held to account for the truth. It will be pinned to opposition dressingroom walls, plastered over the newspaper, turned into a sledge by that smart arse-big mouth in the other team.

"Admit nothing".

But what happens if a footy club is full of great players, a smart coach and a good culture but can't win a brass razoo? What happens if no-one cares who uses what against who because Armageddon has already happened?

Enter the Melbourne Storm.

This is a social experiment in footy club culture, ethics and honesty that we have never seen before and - hopefully - never will again.

After Craig Bellamy's side lost to South Sydney in Perth on June 26, he admitted they were lacking some hunger when games hung in the balance - because they had nothing to play for.

"It's a tough situation for the players," he said. "We don't seem to have that - I don't know what the word for it is - when the game's in the balance to hang in there and scrap for everything."

On Sunday after the win against Canberra, captain Cameron Smith said he didn't feel like showing up some days but when the players didn't put in the effort during the week, they inevitably lost.

"Preparation is what wins you games - that's what we've proved to ourselves," the hooker said. "Weeks where we haven't trained so much or put in the right preparation, we've gone down by two points or four points or six points where we should have been winning those games.

"The last two weeks we've been in here watching videos and doing hour-and-a-half sessions like we used to do and we've got the result.

"It's pretty simple.''

Bellamy didn't make up injuries for Bryan Norrie and Brett White. He said he left them out to give guys like Sione Kite - who will be around in 2011 - a run.

And he said that until the Deloitte report into the salary cap rorts came out, his players basically didn't want to be coached so he didn't bother coaching them.

"I don't think the players were over-receptive to a few of the processes and systems we've got in place here,'' he said.

"I didn't want to be over-coaching them during that time because it was a waste of time for me and a waste of time for them."

Imagine admitting that! Then again, if you're in the Melbourne Storm's position, why not?

A scientist with 16 letters after his name could not come up with a more revealing social experiment than the one the NRL has performed on the Storm.

The results of the experiment? "You, the fans, were right".