Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy wants a few more days to decide his NRL future.
Bellamy remains committed to making a call on a potential contract extension before the Storm’s season-opener at home on March 7 against St George-Illawarra.
The speculation has been that Bellamy will re-commit until the end of 2018.
But he said at Friday’s club season launch that he was yet to make the final call.
“I will probably give a decision (by) the middle or end of next week,” he said.
“We have a few days off – I will clear my head and just make sure I make that right decision.
“Like I say … I want to do it before the start of the season.”
Bellamy also said that he was pleased with his players were working to correct handling errors that had cropped up in their pre-season trials.
Canterbury easily beat the Storm last weekend 20-0.
“We’re prepared physically … with how we played in the two trials, I probably would have liked another trial – just probably with our handling issues,” Bellamy said.
“But the boys are really aware of it at training and they’ve been pretty good this week.”
The Storm are hopeful that Billy Slater will recover from injury in time for round one.
Bellamy said a lack of Kangaroos commitments had meant Slater and other senior players had enjoyed strong pre-seasons.
“They had a longer pre-season than usual,” he said.
“They got a lot of work under their belt, especially Billy, who didn’t play much of last year.
“They all felt a little bit better because they’ve had more training.”