Melbourne believe ruck maestro Cameron Smith is the ideal player to use the new NRL rules to their advantage when they host Canberra on Saturday night.

In Thursday evening’s first NRL match since the March shutdown, Parramatta scored their opening try against Brisbane on the back of the new six-again ruck rule.

The Storm are hopeful that 36-year-old hooker Smith will be able to orchestrate similar damage from dummy half.

“Cameron’s unrivalled in his experience in the game and his experience in that position,” coach Craig Bellamy said on Friday.

“The way the dummy halves from last night’s game came out and got people on to the ball are encouraging for us because no-one does it better than Cameron.

“If last night’s game is a continuing pattern then we’d like to think it gives us an advantage.”