Teams hoping to derail free-scoring Melbourne’s NRL juggernaut aren’t keeping the Storm awake at night.
Despite being tested heavily by the Warriors before three tries in the last 11 minutes sealed a 32-14 Anzac Day victory, the Storm are confident they can keep scoring tries when needed and will back themselves to overcome the defences hell-bent on stopping them.
After stretching their unbeaten start to the season to eight matches, Melbourne skipper Cameron Smith admitted he expected teams to start working out aspects of the Storm’s attack.
“But at the end of the day, they’ve got to stop it,” Smith said.
“Other coaches do a lot of homework on us, and they look at the plays they like doing and they build their defence around that.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to score a fair few points this year and I think the least amount of points we scored was against the Bulldogs and we only got across the line twice.
“We can’t predict what other teams are going to do defensively against us or what sort of systems they’re going to have.
“All we can do is work hard during the week on what we think’s going to work, make sure everyone knows their job and they execute their role properly.”
On a night in which potent try-scoring weapon Billy Slater was quiet, centres Will Chambers and Dane Nielsen scored five tries between them – Chambers grabbing a hat-trick.
It makes the Storm the first team since the Sydney Roosters in 1996 to open the season with eight successive wins.
The Roosters won their opening 10 in that season marred by the Super League war, but fell away late in the year to bow out in the semi-finals.