Storm may have emerged without the points from Monday night’s arm wrestle against the Bulldogs but the performance gave both captain and coach plenty of heart.
Often a weakness against Canterbury in seasons past, Storm’s forward pack stood tall on Monday night, lead by Jesse Bromwich with 165m on the back of a stellar second half.
Melbourne’s prop rotation put the home side in good-ball territory for majority of the game, something the skipper was sure to point out in the wash-up.
“I thought our forward pack outplayed (theirs) for most part of the match to be honest and we needed to,” Cameron Smith said.
“That is why we’ve been dominated over the last few years because our forwards haven’t done a good job but they did an exceptional job tonight I thought.
“I thought all of them played really well. They gave the team opportunities to get down the other end and score points but unfortunately we didn’t.”
Melbourne enjoyed territorial dominance for much of the game and displayed a greater flair in attack than in previous weeks.
A readiness to throw the ball around more freely added greater flow to the Storm attack however their bravery with the ball failed to translate into points on the night.
“We had plenty of ball in that 20m zone but we just need to get better up there,” coach Craig Bellamy said.
“We are getting okay but we are just lacking a little bit of finish there, a bit of timing and working better together.
“I couldn’t fault our effort tonight, I couldn’t fault our defence at all. Usually when we play like that we come in and we’ve usually won but that obviously wasn’t the case tonight.
“We will take a few things out of it and hopefully move on to better things.”
Storm will travel to Leichhardt Oval next Sunday to take on Wests Tigers.
