Melbourne are counting on casting aside disappointing trial form when they host Brisbane in the NRL season opener at AAMI Park on Thursday night.

Coming off last year’s grand final loss, the Storm have lost pre-season matches to the New Zealand Warriors and North Queensland as they look to fill holes left by the retirement of Billy Slater and Ryan Hoffman and departure of representative prop Tim Glasby.

Coach Craig Bellamy says he would have taken another week’s preparation if it was available but reckons his side are as ready as they can be.

“After our trials I probably would have liked another week or two but I often think that after trials to be honest,” he said.

“Getting towards the end of pre-season everyone’s glad the footy’s starting but you play a couple of trials and there’s a couple more things you’d like to work on.

“I think our guys have prepared pretty well this week but we’ll have to improve quite a lot on what we did in the trials so hopefully we can do that.”

The biggest concern, particularly in their 12-6 loss to the Warriors, was a reappearance of the poor ball control that plagued their 2018 campaign.

Bellamy said their standards at training had picked up, which he hoped would be reflected on AAMI Park.

“You won’t really know until you play a game,” he said.

“It’s one thing improving at training but under the heat of the battle it’s a whole different thing.”

The Broncos are playing their first NRL game under Anthony Seibold, a former Bellamy assistant.

Bellamy said he could already see the difference in Brisbane’s game plan following Wayne Bennett’s shift to Souths.

“I know Seibs and Wayne are different – we’ve watched their trials and seen differences in the style of play in some of their defensive systems and how they want to play with the footy so it’s going to change,” Bellamy said.