Craig Bellamy was a satisfied coach after Melbourne Storm's 30-14 win over the North Queensland Cowboys, but reminded his team to keep improving their completion rate.
"I was really happy with our effort tonight," Bellamy said.
"It was quite frustrating again at times, because we started off really well and completions starting falling away.
"At the start of the second half, we completed two out of five, and then all of a sudden we didn't touch a ball for 12 or 14 minutes.
"I thought the players did a really good job - the little things we wanted to do - the little, consistent things, try and do them for the 80 minutes."
The Storm's forward pack - led by Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Jesse Bromwich - took on one of the NRL's best front-row combinations in Matt Scott and Jordan McLean and came out on top.
"We did make some good metres there [up the middle]," Bellamy said.
Match: Storm v Cowboys
Round 3 -
home Team
Storm
4th Position
away Team
Cowboys
12th Position
Venue: AAMI Park, Melbourne
"Their starting side - especially their starting pack - is considered the best in the competition. Our guys took that on as a little challenge tonight.
"We got back to being really direct with our running. Like I say, all those little things - except from the completions - were a whole heap better tonight."
Cameron Smith enjoyed his team's ending to the game as they eyed redemption from last week's close 10-8 loss to the Wests Tigers.
"It was nice to finish well," Smith said.
"Last week and this week, end of halves weren't great from us. Tonight, we started 10-from-10 [completions] and then struggled to hold onto the ball.
"It was nice to finish the second half strongly. We had to close the game out, which we failed to do last week. It was very pleasing to shut it out tonight."
Smith said backing up their grand final win over the Cowboys from last October, wasn't the incentive tonight.
"Our entire focus this week was performing a whole lot better than we did last week against the Tigers," he said. "It was a blessing in a way to have a short turnaround."
Storm press conference - Round 3
