Melbourne sure know how to test the heart rate of their supporters.
Four wins this season at a combined margin of 14 points would have understandably left many Storm fans feeling as though they had in fact played 80 minutes of football.
Monday night’s miraculous comeback win against the Dragons snapped the club’s two-game losing streak and propelled it back into the top eight.
Trailing 24-10 with 13 minutes left the improbable was achieved with a final try that had to be seen to be believed.
A Cooper Cronk kick then went through five different sets of hands before a corner post try by Young Tonumaipea snatched a four-point win that will be remembered by the 13,130-strong crowd for some time to come.
“I was thinking, 'How the are we down 24-10?' To get behind that much seemed a bit surreal to me,” coach Craig Bellamy said.
“I thought we played really well in the last 20 minutes, really well actually.
“To win and to win like that, we obviously had a little bit of luck there but a couple of other stages in that game luck probably deserted us a little bit but it was nice to get that at the end.”
Bellamy joked post match that he had made his side practice that final play during training yesterday, before conceding tries like that do have an element of pot luck.
“We just hung onto our hat and hope it comes off,” Bellamy said.
“To the players' credit there was a couple of good decisions there, Tohu (Harris) to straighten and actually get the offload off, Ryan Hoffman in his peculiar way of passing the ball, it was just something that happened and it’s tough to practice those things.”
Despite escaping with the four-points the fact, the side found themselves in such a dire position was not lost on captain Cameron Smith. Two dropped high balls in each half resulted in easy Dragon tries and it was mistakes like that which irritated the skipper post-match.
“We’ve just got to realise that we need to hang on to the footy and not make it hard for ourselves,” Smith said.
“I don’t know why it’s not getting through at the moment but tonight we had some simple errors. That puts so much pressure on our defence.”
Melbourne has now conceded an average of 28 points in its last four matches but Smith felt a clear step forward was made in that area of the field, despite conceding four tries.
Four wins this season at a combined margin of 14 points would have understandably left many Storm fans feeling as though they had in fact played 80 minutes of football.
Monday night’s miraculous comeback win against the Dragons snapped the club’s two-game losing streak and propelled it back into the top eight.
Trailing 24-10 with 13 minutes left the improbable was achieved with a final try that had to be seen to be believed.
A Cooper Cronk kick then went through five different sets of hands before a corner post try by Young Tonumaipea snatched a four-point win that will be remembered by the 13,130-strong crowd for some time to come.
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“I was thinking, 'How the are we down 24-10?' To get behind that much seemed a bit surreal to me,” coach Craig Bellamy said.
“I thought we played really well in the last 20 minutes, really well actually.
“To win and to win like that, we obviously had a little bit of luck there but a couple of other stages in that game luck probably deserted us a little bit but it was nice to get that at the end.”
Bellamy joked post match that he had made his side practice that final play during training yesterday, before conceding tries like that do have an element of pot luck.
“We just hung onto our hat and hope it comes off,” Bellamy said.
“To the players' credit there was a couple of good decisions there, Tohu (Harris) to straighten and actually get the offload off, Ryan Hoffman in his peculiar way of passing the ball, it was just something that happened and it’s tough to practice those things.”
Despite escaping with the four-points the fact, the side found themselves in such a dire position was not lost on captain Cameron Smith. Two dropped high balls in each half resulted in easy Dragon tries and it was mistakes like that which irritated the skipper post-match.
“We’ve just got to realise that we need to hang on to the footy and not make it hard for ourselves,” Smith said.
“I don’t know why it’s not getting through at the moment but tonight we had some simple errors. That puts so much pressure on our defence.”
Melbourne has now conceded an average of 28 points in its last four matches but Smith felt a clear step forward was made in that area of the field, despite conceding four tries.
“I thought we did a good job on our goal-line tonight,” Smith said.
“I know they scored a few points but our defence was a lot better than it has been the last couple of weeks, it was a mile difference out on the field.”
The Storm now face a trip to Canberra to face the Raiders next Sunday afternoon.
The Storm now face a trip to Canberra to face the Raiders next Sunday afternoon.
