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2020 grand final of little use to Storm now: Bellamy

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Storm Coach, Craig Bellamy says there is nothing but “nice memories” to take from Melbourne’s 2020 NRL premiership win as he leads the new-look Storm into the grand-final rematch against Penrith.

Rarely in the ensuing four seasons have triple-reigning premiers Penrith been as comprehensively outplayed as they were by the Storm in the 2020 decider.

Playing his last match, NRL great Cameron Smith skippered the Storm to a 26-0 lead early in the second half, with the side eventually holding on for a 26-20 win and fourth premiership.

Fuelled by their heartbreak, the Panthers twice eliminated the Storm from finals in the years that followed, before the two undisputed best sides of 2024 booked in a grand-final date for Sunday.

But while much has been made of roster changes undergone at Penrith over the past four years, the Storm have been undergoing their own regeneration.

Just four players from the Storm’s 2020 grand final team – Jahrome Hughes, Cameron Munster, Ryan Papenhuyzen and Christian Welch – will face Penrith at Accor Stadium.

And while Penrith’s squad is now largely comprised of players who came through their famous junior nursery, nine of the Storm’s 17 were recruited after the 2020 triumph.

“I was just looking at the last team we had in a grand final in 2020. Nine of those 18 played against us this year,” Bellamy said.

“Having lost them and obviously Cameron (Smith) being the big loss, our side has changed a lot in four years. It’s changed a heap.”

Newly-minted Dally M Medallist Hughes, wily five-eighth Munster and athletic fullback Papenhuyzen were all in the spine on grand final day in 2020, with the last of that trio winning the Clive Churchill Medal as man of the match.

But with Smith still the chief architect at the time, Bellamy said the team had undergone a shift since 2020, and was quick to point out injuries had meant the current spine was only just clicking into gear. 

“It’s a different era with those guys,” he said.

“These guys are just basically starting together. They’ve still got a bit to go, to be quite honest.”

While Sunday’s fixture marks only the second grand final rematch of the NRL era, Bellamy is looking at the two deciders as separate from one another.

“Four years is a long time in life, four years is a real long time in footy,” he said.

“At the end of the day, that was a great result for us back then but I can hardly remember it to be quite honest. 

“What’s important is now. In the past, they’re nice memories, but halfway through next week we’d like to have a nice memory of what happens (on Sunday) too.”

Written by: Jasper Bruce © AAP

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Melbourne Storm prepares to halt Penrith dynasty

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Craig Bellamy has revealed how a sit-down meeting with Melbourne’s new ‘big four’ has put the Storm on the cusp of marking a fresh era in the club’s history and ending Penrith’s stranglehold on the NRL premiership.

The Storm return to their first grand final since the 2020 decider when fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen stole the show and Cameron Smith signed off with a premiership as Melbourne knocked off the Panthers.

In the time since Smith followed Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk into TV punditry, the Storm have fallen short and Penrith have risen to take their mantle as the game’s premier club with three-straight premierships.

Despite Penrith’s success-laden run, Panthers coach Ivan Cleary still humbly refers to Melbourne as “the benchmark” in the NRL.

But after some relatively lean years, Bellamy heads into his 10th grand final with a side believing they can mark the start of a successful post-Smith era against a Penrith team aiming to become the first since St George (1956-1966) to claim four consecutive titles.

It sets up a grand final for the ages.

Like Melbourne’s champion sides of old, the 2024 iteration is underpinned by workaholic forwards and a spine that can make magic happen.

Halfback Jahrome Hughes won the Dally M Medal earlier this week and hooker Harry Grant has begun to add more craft to his dummy-half play.

Crucially, too, five-eighth Cameron Munster and Papenhuyzen look back to their best after wretched runs with injury over the last two seasons.

They got a reminder of what they could achieve when after an unconvincing 28-16 win over South Sydney in round 23, Bellamy sat his ‘big four’ down for a heart to heart.

“(I said) we need you guys to go above and beyond what we usually do or what we’ve expected to do if we’re going to have success this year,” Bellamy said.

“We can wait until next year, but no one wants to do that. Let’s do it now.

Storm head coach Craig Bellamy speaks to media following a Captain’s Run training session, ahead of the 2024 NRL Grand Final at Accor Stadium in Sydney, Saturday, October 5, 2024. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
Storm head coach Craig Bellamy speaks to media following a Captain’s Run training session, ahead of the 2024 NRL Grand Final at Accor Stadium in Sydney, Saturday, October 5, 2024. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

“It’s not all physical, it’s about talking about it and watching a bit of vision together. It was about putting a bit more time and effort in, and then going from there.”

Remarkably, Sunday’s grand final at Accor Stadium will just be the 20th time the quartet of Papenhuyzen, Grant, Munster and Hughes have played together at NRL level.

Grant said the meeting with Bellamy went a big way to explaining the Storm’s added attacking spark at the end of the year, their preliminary final win over the Roosters highlighting the synergy between their awesome foursome.

“Sometimes you feel things and you assume things,” Grant said.

“But that conversation just cleared a few things up for each other, and set us on the straight and narrow for the back end of the year, which was really important at that time.”

Melbourne will begin the grand final as slight favourites even accounting for Penrith’s experience of appearing in five straight deciders and the absence of Nelson Asofa-Solomona due to suspension.

Sunday’s grand final (7.30pm kick-off) will be the final Panthers game for prop James Fisher-Harris and five-eighth Jarome Luai.

“If there is any sort of that energy where it’s my last year amongst the group then I want this to be a positive one,” Luai said.

“You never really take it lightly, the effort and the achievement it is to be here.

“But between winning and losing there’s a big difference on how you look at your season, so I really want to win this one.”

Written by: George Clarke © AAP

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Storm sweat on Katoa for finals, Papenhuyzen on track

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Melbourne forward Eliesa Katoa was sin-binned and put on report for a hit on Brisbane fullback Tristan Sailor that could have ramifications for their finals campaign.

The independent doctor ruled that Sailor did not need to go off for an HIA, suggesting he was not hit high with any force. The Storm are hoping that scenario will play out well for them with the match review committee when they investigate the incident that occurred in the 61st minute of their 50-12 thrashing of the Broncos at Suncorp Stadium.

“We will be able to use that to our advantage I would imagine,” Storm coach Craig Bellamy said.

“From where I was sitting I didn’t think it was too bad and I was surprised that he went to the bin.”

Bellamy had good news about first choice fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen, who suffered bone bruising to his leg in last week’s loss to North Queensland.

Papenhuyzen is on track to play the first week of the finals after his replacement Sua Fa’alogo tweaked a hamstring against Brisbane.

“At a pinch Paps could have played this week but we didn’t want to take that risk,” Bellamy said.

“We didn’t want him to pull up sore and not train all next week leading into the finals so we thought that was the best way to go.

“The medical staff seem to think Paps will be fine for next week.”

Bellamy said Fa’alogo felt “a pop” in his hamstring but there was hope it was not as bad as first thought.

The pocket rocket, who will go for scans,  ran for 208m and had two try assists in a dynamic 57-minute display. He would be a dangerous bench option later in the finals if he can recover.

“He is a great runner of the footy and like lightning,” Bellamy said.

“The more games we can get him the more he is going to learn about the game and the better player he will be.”

The Storm have had injuries like all clubs this season, including missing star No.6 Cameron Munster for 10 weeks in the middle of the year with a groin problem, but still managed 19 wins to finish top of the table.

“The guys that have come in have done such a good job, like Wishy (Tyran Wishart), Grant Anderson and Jack Howarth,” Bellamy said.

“They have really performed. Sometimes you put a player in and he is not ready for first grade but these guys after a week or two have grabbed the opportunity, run with it and made a success of it.”

Bellamy has won three premierships as Storm coach and is in a strong position to challenge for a fourth.

“You would love to win a grand final,” he said.

“They are hard to win and hard to get to. You have to do a lot of things right. Hopefully we can play our best footy in the next month.”

The win over the Broncos was his 400th in charge of the Storm.

“It is a nice milestone but I sit up in the box,” he said.

“I have some sort of influence during the week I suppose but it is the players that have gone out and done all the hard work.”

The Storm will host a qualifying final next week against the fourth-placed team. 

Written by: Joel Gould (AAP)

Photo file: (AAP Image/Jono Searle )AAP ©

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