NO SHORTAGE OF TESTS AWAIT STORM
MELBOURNE Storm coach Craig Bellamy is relishing their reduced travel schedule, despite being dealt one of the toughest draws in the NRL season reboot.
The Storm have been drawn for two meetings with 2019 premiers Sydney Roosters, grand finalists Canberra, preliminary finalists Souths and arch-rivals Manly and Newcastle, which have made an unbeaten start to 2020.
They start off on Saturday week against the Raiders at their usual home ground AAMI Park, which Bellamy said made all the difference.
Melbourne doesn’t have to make the trek to Townsville, plays in Brisbane only once and the New Zealand Warriors are based in NSW.
“It’s pretty tough with the teams we’re playing twice — the two grand finalists and Manly and Newcastle,” Bellamy said.
“We’re fortunate that we’re allowed to play games at AAMI Park so that will reduce our travel ... so that’s one really good part of it for us.
“If we had to jump on a plane for nine weeks in a row to play home games in Sydney ... it makes it certainly easier on us.”
The Storm is set to be at full strength to take on the Raiders with new recruit, centre Paul Momirovski, and winger Sandor Earl expected to overcome soft tissue injuries to be available for selection.
Bellamy said such injuries weren’t entirely unexpected.
“We obviously wanted to get some training into them that was specific to the game,” Bellamy said.
“To do that with only about 2½ weeks of contact — knowing how far to go there with the intent of the actions but also the duration — was tricky.
“We knew there were going to be some injuries when we put the foot down with our training — and we got that.
“But I don’t think we’ve done too much damage so we expect everyone to be training next week.”