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Tui Kamikamica and Billy Walters drop out. Final line-up confirmed an hour before kick-off.

Billy the Kid and The Fox to tailgate NAS and run off his offloads!
Bring back Jacks! Glad it's a Thursday night game. Nothing like a quick turn around after that Tigers game.

http://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/melbou ... ec7fb5353c

Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy looking for response after after shock Tigers loss
GILBERT GARDINER
March 21, 2018

CRAIG Bellamy says the Storm expect an aerial assault from North Queensland after the minor premiers were found to be vulnerable under the high ball last week.

MELBOURNE Storm expects an aerial assault from North Queensland after the minor premiers were found to be vulnerable under the high ball last week.

The West Tigers set up a two-point boilover last Saturday night at AAMI Park by shelling the back field with bombs, the catalyst for clumsy Storm errors.

Coach Craig Bellamy said he expects the Cowboys to deploy similar tactics to unsettle the likes of Suliasi Vunivalu, Josh Addo-Carr and Billy Slater.

“I imagine they will,” Bellamy said.

“There was a little bit of confusion with the back three at times on Saturday night, so hopefully we’ve sorted that out and those guys will be able to communicate a bit more clearly this week, so we know who’s catching and who ain’t.”

Cowboys ace Johnathan Thurston is the best exponent of the floating bomb, while playmaker Michael Morgan, set to return from an abdominal injury, boasts an elite kicking game as well.

A loss in the Round 3 blockbuster, which doubles as Thurston’s last stand in Melbourne and Vunivalu’s 50th game, would relegate Storm to their worst start to a season since 2008.

“They are all big games — it doesn’t matter what round it is,” Bellamy said.

“You don’t get more points in round two than you do in round 17.

“It’s not really about the two points or about the win — it’s obviously what we’re all out there to do, but it’s about improving on what we’ve done.”

Due to the five-day turnaround Storm has been unable to attack training with gusto this week, but Bellamy hopes the disappointment of the latest loss will spur a the required response.

Storm paid dearly for “basic” handling errors, gifting the resurgent Tigers valuable territory.

“It is a bit hard to get a gauge (on improvement) with the lack of training this week, so I suppose we’ll see tomorrow night,” Bellamy said.

“Without a doubt (it is about reinforcing the basics). That’s what we haven’t been doing well.

“We haven’t been doing them so well at training either.

“It’s a bit more consistency, that’s what we’re looking for, and doing the basics a lot better than we have been doing.

“It was a lazy performance (last week) and not working hard enough with doing the basic things well.”

blazza18 wrote:I think NAS has moved into the starting role now despite playing about the same minutes as he usually does. Story up on the Storm's website with Bellamy praising his start to the year.

Yep, good to see that both Nelson and Kasiano should see more minutes. Both are our strongest runners of the ball and our forward pack seems to gain ascendancy when they have a run - granted with Kas we have a limited sample size to date.

Deserved starting spot for NAS. I'm pumped that he has fixed some of those basic errors and earned that kind of respect from Bellamy.

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https://www.melbournestorm.com.au/news/ ... y-bellamy/

Nelson leading the way: Bellamy
melbournestorm.com.au
Wed 21 Mar 2018

Nelson Asofa-Solomona has been Melbourne Storm’s most consistent player so far this season.

That sentence is music to Craig Bellamy’s ears.

For the last four years the Storm coaching staff have known what Nelson is capable of. Over that time there have been glimpses such as; his best afield performance in ANZAC Day last year, the occasional flashy offload and bulldozing runs that leave defenders on their backside.

All these things have seen him become a fan favourite amongst the purple army and now he is starting to showcase all the above and more each and every week.

The Storm coach said that while his side’s form had been patchy in the opening two weeks, the performance of his No.10 had been not.

“We’ve spoken about our team’s consistency not being so great but Nelson has been 180 degrees from that,” Craig Bellamy said.

“This is the most consistent he has been. He has made a lot of changes to his routine and preparation and we are seeing the results of that off the field.

“He has probably been our most consistent player, if someone had of said that to me 12 months ago I would’ve thought they had rocks in their head.

“He just needed to tidy up on a couple of things and he has, he is playing good footy at the moment. The longer he is out there, the better we seem to be going.”

Nelson’s promotion to the starting side has granted Storm with a wealth of powerful players on the bench.

Kenny Bromwich and Sam Kasiano are international representatives, Tim Glasby a Queensland Origin player and Christian Welch has been tremendous in his return from a long-term knee injury.

It is an advantage Storm will look to use to full effect against the Cowboys on Thursday night.

“Tim is an Origin player and he played that (bench) role in Origin so he is doing that really well at the moment,” Bellamy said.

“Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can get a few more minutes into Sam as well and hopefully he can play that role also.”

I was thinking it was a real let down to let that tigers game get away from us.
So what I was thinking it's a blessing in disguise, now I haven't done my research but off the top of my head we have some players in the background itching to get their turn if players aren't stepping up.

NAS and Sam I think really make a difference when they are on, Jesse will pull out a blinder tonight I'm hoping.

yourhero wrote:

blazza18 wrote:I think NAS has moved into the starting role now despite playing about the same minutes as he usually does. Story up on the Storm's website with Bellamy praising his start to the year.

Yep, good to see that both Nelson and Kasiano should see more minutes. Both are our strongest runners of the ball and our forward pack seems to gain ascendancy when they have a run - granted with Kas we have a limited sample size to date.

Deserved starting spot for NAS. I'm pumped that he has fixed some of those basic errors and earned that kind of respect from Bellamy.

NAS is one of our strike weapons but IMO he has the greatest impact when he comes off the bench and gets to bust through some tired forwards without having to work overly hard in defence. I'd prefer if we had Glasby on to absorb the initial big runs and bring on NAS at around 15min.

Either way, I think NAS and Kasiano should be in rotation. Don't give the opposition any rest. NAS goes off, they breathe a sigh of relief, then look up and see a fresh Kasiano running full speed ahead...

As both players get more game time, possibly even have periods of overlap (bring Kas on 5 mins before NAS is due for a rest).

If Jesse finds his 2016 form, we would be in a really strong position. Unfortunately Jesse has dropped off quite a bit. Fingers crossed he can get back to that level.

Reports Kenny is out. Hopefully we see Smith come in but I doubt it.

Well it would have to be either Smith or Young T. Smith makes a lot more sense. Did Kenny pick up an injury or something?

Kamikamica has been brought back in

Anyone seen a final 17 yet?

Mattpoet wrote:Anyone seen a final 17 yet?

They always leave it right up to the time limit. So within the next 10 mins we should know.

Smith is in. Officially

F*ck yes!

Three weeks and an injury for probably our best 17 to be named. Will look forward to it even though it will only be for one game.