As it stands right now, the Storm are pretenders, in my opinion. They are playing a soft brand of footy that won’t see them lift the trophy come the first weekend of October. Everyone has them as the benchmark and the title favourites, and I don’t think they’re anywhere close to that at the moment.
Their attack is side to side to the ultimate extent. They go from one sideline to the other, then back to where it started every play. When that fails, it’s a cross-field kick to Xavier Coates. Luckily for them, he’s a freak of nature and catches some kicks and finishes tries he has no right to. Don’t get me wrong — it looks incredible on a sunny day in Melbourne with a fast track against the Eels or the Tigers. But in any other conditions against a decent side, they look far from a team that’s favourite to win the comp. Melbourne’s success over the last 20+ years has been built on the back of defence, but it seems that has gone out the window this year. They’re attempting to outscore the opposition, and everyone knows the team that wins the comp at the end of the year is the best defensive side. This team has a lot of work to do.
It starts with their middles — or lack thereof. There is no punch there on a regular basis. Stefano Utoikamanu shows signs of the potential we thought he would reach under Craig Bellamy, but overall, he has been underwhelming. In his defence, I actually think big NAS has played the best I’ve seen him play in years over the last two weeks, but he’s not on the field long enough to influence a game’s result like the other elite front-rowers in the NRL. Josh King, Trent Loiero, and Alec MacDonald are all hard workers and reliable players, but they don’t have the explosiveness or the power game to combat the elite forward packs in the NRL.
I am bewildered watching Harry Grant this year. This is one of the most explosive and dynamic runners of the ball in the dummy-half position in the comp, and this year he genuinely looks scared to run the ball. It’s like it’s been drilled into him that as soon as he gets a quick play-the-ball or an offload, he should just shift it wide straight away. It’s baffling to watch. Go forward and earn the right to go wide, lads — you learn that in under-12’s.
No one is doubting how good this team can be on their day, but unless Craig Bellamy makes some adjustments to their style of play and they harden their defence, they will not be winning games against the best defensive sides in the comp come finals footy.
