Star halves step up as workhorse forward shines in big statement<\/a><\/p>\nCraig Bellamy and Harry Grant.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day it\u2019s hard to get into a Grand Final and it\u2019s extra hard to win one. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo we found a way today to get into the Grand Final and hopefully we can find a way to finish it off next week. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the end of the day, there\u2019s going to be two teams there and they\u2019re going to be two good teams and let\u2019s see what happens. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut this thing about, you\u2019ve had a failed season to get beat in the Grand Final, that\u2019s a load of crap. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to get into a Grand Final and it is a fair bit harder winning one.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bellamy admitted making his 11th Grand Final hadn\u2019t quite sunk in, but he was proud of his players for making it after a rollercoaster year. <\/p>\n
\u201cActually I\u2019m not quite as excited as I probably thought I\u2019d be,\u201d Bellamy said. <\/p>\n
Hughes overcomes injury to score try | 00:29<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing I was happiest with most was our form today. I thought we were a lot more consistent than we have been probably the last month or five weeks. That\u2019s probably the reason we won the game too, to be quite honest. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the Sharks have had a really good end to the season and I thought they defended their try line today really well. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a little bit frustrated there a couple of times I think. But it probably hasn\u2019t sunk in for me yet. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just thinking about what we\u2019re doing tomorrow and who we\u2019re playing too. I think we don\u2019t find that out until Sunday. It\u2019s really good but I think we\u2019ll probably sink in a little bit more tomorrow for me. <\/p>\n
Ivan talks on “unfair” finals schedule | 01:30<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a sense of relief in that we\u2019ve found basically nearly a consistent 80 minutes, which we probably haven\u2019t produced for the last five or six weeks. That\u2019s a bit of a relief. \u201cThen sort of understand what winning today means. That probably hasn\u2019t sunk in to me yet.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jahrome Hughes made a successful return from a fractured forearm to lead the Storm to victory and Bellamy revealed he was always confident his halfback would be fine to get through the 80 minutes. <\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah, without a doubt, it was a big call to drop Jonah (Pezet),\u201d Bellamy said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe did a really good job last week, but the thing with Hughes, when I spoke to him about it, he was just so confident that he was okay. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not an overconfident or a cocky kid at all, so when he told me he was ready, I knew he\u2019d be ready and then talking to the medical people, they thought that what he\u2019d done with his rehab, that he should be okay. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo the confidence that he showed in that he was going to be okay, that convinced me that he was right to play.\u201d <\/p>\n
‘Stop Reece?’: Ivan addresses left edge | 10:34<\/p>\n
The star of the game apart from Hughes and Cameron Munster was Stefano Utoikamanu, who has stepped up in the absence of suspended star Nelson Asofa-Solomona. <\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, without a doubt, but with all due respect, he\u2019s been building probably the last eight or ten weeks,\u201d Bellamy said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think when he first came here, we probably did things a little bit differently to what he\u2019d been used to. <\/p>\n
\u201cNot saying it\u2019s right or wrong, but he took a little while to, I suppose understand what his role was and how to do his role in this team. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut the last eight or ten weeks, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen a better front-rower in the competition to be quite honest. He was outstanding and he certainly led the way today. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just such a modest guy, some of those guys, they\u2019re really good players, they\u2019ve got a bit of front on them, but he\u2019s got nothing of that. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just a real down to earth, modest, lovely bloke, but his last eight or 10 weeks, he\u2019s been outstanding.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Craig Bellamy blasted suggestions the Storm\u2019s season will be a failure ff they don\u2019t win the Grand Final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,689,4428,4567,8089,4738,4565,111397,111398,104528,5098,4575,4746,4466,673,677,16284,111395,19095,82581,111346,668,48010,111396,111394,85,111399,34537,11388],"class_list":["post-170625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-brisbane-broncos","tag-cameron-munster","tag-craig-bellamy","tag-craig-fitzgibbon","tag-cronulla-sharks","tag-due-respect","tag-failure-question","tag-grand-final-qualifier","tag-ivan-cleary","tag-jahrome-hughes","tag-mark-st-john","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-new-south-wales","tag-oceania","tag-penrith","tag-prelim-win","tag-preliminary-final","tag-preliminary-final-loss","tag-preliminary-finals-game","tag-press-conference","tag-salary-cap-scandal","tag-schedule-furore","tag-sharks-ratings","tag-sports","tag-storm-ratings","tag-the-star","tag-try-line"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}