Melbourne Storm aren’t being fooled by Newcastle’s winless start to the NRL season.
The unbeaten Storm host the Knights at AAMI Park on Monday night and won’t take the visitors lightly despite their contrasting records after two rounds.
Melbourne back-rower Ryan Hinchcliffe said the Knights had been unlucky and were a better team than their ladder position suggested.
They lost their last round to Canberra 26-20.
“They’re a good side and they played really well against the Raiders,” Hinchcliffe said.
“They’ve got some really strong outside backs and obviously with (Willie) Mason, (Kane) Snowden and Beau Scott and (Jeremy) Smith in the forwards, you’ve got some real experience and really tough guys who play through the middle.”
Hinchcliffe felt his forwards were up to the challenge, led by prop Jesse Bromwich, who last week signed a new deal with the club.
“If there’s a better front-rower in the competition at the moment, I don’t know who it is,” he said.
“The challenge for Jesse now is to back it up each week.”
The Knights showed how to beat the odds in last year’s NRL finals when they eliminated the Storm 18-16 in the semi-final in Melbourne, where they previously hadn’t won since 2004.
The painful memory was still fresh for the Storm players, with Hinchcliffe saying that the Knights would be bristling with confidence from the upset win.
“There’s no doubt tomorrow night they are going to come down here full of confidence, especially after what happened last year.”
The Storm are at full strength and halfback Cooper Cronk will be even more potent with one game under his belt following his post-season shoulder surgery.
The Knights are still without fullback Darius Boyd and five-eighth Jarrod Mullen, who are both sidelined with hamstring injuries.
Melbourne have won their two rounds by just a point and Hinchcliffe said the challenge for them was to play out the full 80 minutes.
“There’s been patches, the start of the Manly game and then for 30-40 minutes through the Penrith game that we let them dictate terms.
“We made it quite difficult for ourselves so we need a consistent effort across the full 80 minutes and that’s what we’re searching for.”
