From last on the ladder to first into the grand final, Stefano Utoikamanu has been on a ‘crazy journey’ that has one stop left to make in Sydney next week.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old front-rower arrived at the Storm with three wooden spoons in his kit bag from his time at Wests Tigers and a fierce desire to better himself under the guidance of Craig Bellamy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time last year I was sitting at home watching the finals,” Utoikamanu said after his starring role in Friday night’s 22-14 win over the Sharks.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s probably a big motivation for me, just watching from the sidelines and seeing all these good players playing these big games. That\u2019s probably where I want to see myself getting the best out of myself is playing in these big games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust saying now that we’re actually going to play in the grand final \u2013 yeah, it\u2019s pretty crazy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Bellamy: Our last eight to ten weeks have been outstanding<\/p>\n
In 46 minutes of game time against the Sharks, Utoikamanu delivered the finest performance of his career to date as he made it a mission to get the better of one of the best in the business, Addin Fonua-Blake.<\/p>\n
With 139 run metres, four tackle breaks and a deft offload to send Jahrome Hughes on his way for a try, the Blues Origin prop had master mentor Bellamy singing his praises post-match.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he first came here, we probably did things a little bit differently to what he’d been used to. I\u2019m not saying it’s right or wrong, but he took a little while to understand what his role was like, how to do his role in this team,\u201d said Bellamy, who is into a remarkable 11th grand final as Storm coach.<\/p>\n
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Jahrome Hughes Try<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last eight or 10 weeks I haven\u2019t seen a better front-rower in the competition, to be honest. He’s been outstanding, and he certainly led the way tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of those guys that are really good players, you know, they\u2019ve got a front about it. But he’s got nothing like that. He’s just a real down to earth, modest, lovely bloke, and the last couple of months he’s been outstanding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the back of two appearances for NSW in the Origin series, Utoikamanu returned to Melbourne a more confident player and has churned out big minutes and big metres to help carry his new team to an old familiar stomping ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first came here, it was probably a bit of a change. I feel like week-to-week, I’ve just been trying to improve on my game, and it’s probably coming together,” he told media post-match.<\/p>\n
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NRL Best Moments \u2013 Finals Week 3<\/p>\n
\u201cPreparation-wise, I feel like I’ve been coming every week and doing the same thing but just coming out of that Origin period – I got a lot of confidence from getting into that NSW team.”<\/p>\n
In typically humble fashion, Utoikamanu wasn’t about to take any shots at those who questioned his Blues selection or whether he had what it took to make a go of it in the Storm system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen people talk bad about me, not just this year, but last year as well,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was probably criticised just for coming to this club. A big reason why I came is playing those games. The only opinion that really matters is my teammates and coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From last on the ladder to first into the grand final, Stefano Utoikamanu has been on a ‘crazy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-176322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176322","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=176322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}