Melbourne Storm head coach Craig Bellamy spoke to the media ahead of his side’s Round 22 matchup against the Eels on Friday night.
Storm’s 25-year celebration
“It is exciting. Obviously, 25 years now, I've been here for a fair chunk of it.”
“For me, the big thing is to get everyone that's been involved in the club the chance to get back for the weekend.”
“I think they've got a really good roll up of ex-players – the Melbourne Old Boys and obviously some staff coaches.”
“We just need to make sure we concentrate on doing our jobs tomorrow night and then we can celebrate on Saturday, hopefully.”
“There's a lot of great foundations put in by the time I got here, you know? I think of John Ribbo, Chris Anderson, Mick Moore, Greg Brentnall, all those guys, they should be taking most of the credit for how this club was started.”
Bouncing back from Round 21
“I don't know whether it was lack of care or a little bit of complacency when we got off to that great start. I hate to think it was that, but it was a some bad signs there to be quite honest.”
“We pride ourselves on being consistent each week.”
“We don't have to win every week. We know we're not going to be 100% every week, but we need to put that effort in every week and we were a fair way away from that last week.”
Papenhuyzen’s return to training
“He's getting close to playing again, I think.”
“All due respect me, I was not overly confident of him even playing again this year, to be quite honest, but he's come a long way in the last two or three weeks so hopefully it won't be too long before he puts the boots back on.”
“It's a little bit of how he goes, how he feels, not how he feels with the knee but how he feels going out there again after such a long time off and being confident with the contact part of the game.”
Previewing Friday night’s clash
“I wouldn't say [the Eels are] in a quite similar spot to us, but they've obviously got a couple of suspensions and a couple of injuries too. I think you know, especially the suspension.”
“So that's probably hurting them a little bit, but I can't remember a time when we've played Parramatta that it hasn't been a real contest, so we're expecting exactly that.”
Craig Bellamy pre-game media: Round 22
