Melbourne’s brains trust coach Craig Bellamy and skipper Cameron Smith believe the Storm’s previously porous defence is beginning to harden significantly at exactly the right time of the NRL season.
The Storm conceded a number of blowout scorelines early in the season, but have allowed just 32 points in their last four games.
Monday’s 28-6 win over Wests Tigers at Campbelltown Stadium was their third successive win and shifts them into sixth on the NRL ladder.
Cooper Cronk starred for the Storm with four try assists and winger Marika Koroibete scored a double against his old team.
“Our defence has improved out of sight in the last four weeks,” Bellamy said.
“Cameron made the point a couple of times about our attitude to defence. That’s certainly picked up the last month and to me that’s been the big difference.
“We had an up-and-down first 17 weeks and we’ve shown a little bit more consistency the last month and we need to make sure we keep that going and not drop back into preparing differently each week and not performing like we should.
“We’ve got some improvement in us and we need to make sure we don’t drop back into that inconsistent pattern of the first 17 weeks.”
Smith concurred with his coach’s words.
“Our commitment to keeping the opposition away from our tryline at the start of the year wasn’t where it needed to be and now it is,” he said.
“The boys don’t want anyone crossing their line.
“When you’re doing that you’re always going to be hard to beat no matter how well you’re playing in attack.”
Melbourne travel to Newcastle on Saturday.