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THE presentation of Russell Crowe's address to the South Sydney membership thisweek looked a trifle familiar.

Appearing somewhat tired and unshaven in a wood-panelled room in some mate's place in Hollywood, his hands clasped presidentially upon the desk in front of him, Crowe's regal air came courtesy of a bookcase to his immediate rear, stacked as it was with volumes whose matching bindings spoke of something serious going on, a couple of baseball caps on the shelves reminding us of this sporting life.

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It took me a while to work out where I'd seen this diorama before - it was The South Sydney Story, the six-part documentary that ran on the ABC last year, in which Crowe was interviewed in his own home-office looking tired and unshaven, his hands clasped upon the desk in front of him, the wood-panel walls, the bookcase behind, the matching bindings, a poster of "Baer vs Braddock" on the wall to remind us of the common struggle (and the Cinderella Man DVD out now). Either Crowe's a library freak or he wants to present himself in a certain light.

This is all classic Crowe, the self-conscious gravity bamboozled by an almost comedic attention to stage management, and it's these sorts of cornball dramatics that tend to distract from whatever Crowe has to say, which, in this most recent case, is quite the pity. For the monologue he delivered from the stylised set was perhaps the most credible of his screen career.

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For the record, I don't have a great deal of affection for the man, a fact that should have been obvious to all on the publishing of a widely read story some two years ago, which documented Crowe's attempt to manipulate me into writing him a good yarn.

I haven't spoken to him since, and it's sufficient to reveal we won't be exchanging Christmas cards this year or any year hereafter. I suspect he's as comfortable with that arrangement as me. But that doesn't make me a lifelong cheerleader for the Anti-Crowe League, a club whose membership is greater, it seems, than that of any football club.

What Crowe said in his six-minute address to the Rabbitohs membership was absolutely correct: the club needs members, more than the 5000-odd ticket-holding members they presently have. His benevolence will not last forever, and if he were murdered tomorrow by, say, an irate journalist, South Sydney would be in strife.

That is not a situation with which any supporter of the team should be comfortable. Besides the daggy bookshelf and the presidential airs, I fail to see what part of that message could possibly outrage or offend anyone at all.

To be perfectly honest, I was astonished to learn that 5000 or 6000 could be considered a comparatively healthy membership tally for an NRL club. That's appalling. The least popular team in the AFL boasts a membership five times that amount.

There were reportedly 80,000 people at Sydney Town Hall in November 2000, protesting against South Sydney's expulsion from the league. Ten years later and where are they all? Are they the same "passionate" supporters blowing raspberries at Crowe today, claiming he's ruined "the people's team"?

I'm inclined to agree with those who say Crowe's 2006 takeover of the Rabbitohs was not entirely benevolent, that it was more so the personal realisation of a little boy's dream in a rich man's grasp. Some of his morally dictatorial decisions have seemed to bear that out; the removal of poker machines from Chalmers St seemed suicidal for a modern leagues club barely out of the financial woods, not to mention a high-hatted spit in the eye of any regulars who may just happen to enjoy playing poker machines, and the replacement of the cheergirls with a bunch of drummer boys was as contemptuous of the traditional audience as would be the decision to put Andre Rieu on the cover of Ralph.

His claims that such decisions were in the name of the community, or the good "family game", didn't wash when coming from the bloke who dolled up the team and took them to the premiere of a film made by Sydney's most notorious and territorial street gang.

And then there are the little touches of vanity: the imported Armani suits, the personal pre-match oratory, the new-improved "black bunny". This is Crowe putting his stamp on the club. Whether it does the club any good is debatable.

But there is one truth that cannot be denied, and it is this: today, South Sydney is unquestionably the most famous team in the NRL and, whether by design or happy accident, that is all thanks to Crowe. The Rabbitohs are constantly in the media, both here and overseas. People such as Snoop Dog, for crying out loud, are sporting the colours.

The Rabbitohs are, once again, as synonymous with rugby league as are the Magpies with the AFL - something unthinkable back in 1999, or even 2005.

As a result, South Sydney has the strongest sponsorship base in the league, and they are attracting some of the game's best players. There are a few teams in the NRL in serious financial trouble and, for the first time in a long time, Souths is not one of them.

The dogged George Piggins, perhaps the great tragic figure of Crowe's reign, may have saved the Rabbitohs from the millennial guillotine, but it was Crowe who set them on the road to the good life.

Rugby league is rather like the Islam of sporting faiths, in that it does not accommodate innovation or change very well (it's the only code in which one hears fans constantly mewing for "the good old days"). Perhaps Crowe was aware of this in 2006 and knew something bold had to be done to change the off-field culture of the game.

Or perhaps he was just being his self-promoting, occasionally embarrassing self. Whatever the case, it has worked. They didn't win the premiership in 2008, as Crowe promised they would, but one gets the feeling that is a promise not broken, but simply running late.

It is now time that South Sydney supporters, and league fans in general, put their money where their mouths have been. There are those who say Russell Crowe should put his mouth where he says his money is going; away.

We cynics would have less to poke fun at, but I'm not convinced it would be the best thing for South Sydney.