{"id":291082,"date":"2025-11-17T20:28:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291082\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T20:28:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:28:30","slug":"were-still-dealing-with-it-melbourne-storm-boss-makes-honest-admission-ahead-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291082\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re still dealing with it,\u2019 Melbourne Storm boss makes honest admission ahead of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a difficult six weeks for the Melbourne Storm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Backline stars Ryan Papenhyzen and Jonah Pezet are officially gone, head coach Craig Bellamy is coming off contract (again) and as the 2026 pre-season gets underway the health of stricken forward Eli Katoa remains foremost in the thoughts of everyone at the club.<\/p>\n

Against a backdrop of uncertainty that touches many fronts at the club, Melbourne Storm CEO Justin Rodski\u00a0has acknowledged there are plenty of challenges to be overcome\u2014including the mental scars of successive grand final defeats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re still dealing with it to be honest,\u201d Rodski admitted<\/a> of the 2025 season decider loss to the Brisbane Broncos<\/a> back on October 5.<\/p>\n

MORE: Storm \u2018hopeful\u2019 of extending Bellamy into 25th NRL season<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLosing a grand final is tough, losing two in a row is even tougher\u2014we\u2019re still really proud our season, but in the end on that Sunday night we just weren\u2019t quite good enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rodski explained Storm players and coaches were encouraged to take time away to deal with the disappointment in their own ways, before beginning the process of \u2018climbing the mountain again\u2019 in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing it for number of years now and we continue to come back (as an NRL premiership threat),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach season we\u2019re there or thereabouts\u2014to be giving ourselves the opportunity to win a premiership and making it to the grand final is something we want to continue to do and hopefully next year we can go one better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re in the market\u2019 declares Rodski<\/p>\n

The Storm boss also discussed the ongoing challenges of list management which has played a crucial role in delivering the Storm\u2019s sustained run of success over more than a decade under head coach Craig Bellamy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do have few list spots that we\u2019re currently looking at,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a number of list management meetings post season, some of those changes have been forced and some have been a good opportunity for us to reset the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really comfortable and confident in our core squad, but there are clearly some gaps that we need to address and we\u2019re in the market talking to a number of players for 2026, but also 2027 and 2028.\u201d<\/p>\n

How high on the Storm\u2019s list is off-contract Titans<\/a> captain Tino Fa\u2019asuamaleaui?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s high on everyone\u2019s list!\u201d Rodski laughed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a difficult six weeks for the Melbourne Storm. Backline stars Ryan Papenhyzen and Jonah Pezet are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-291082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291082","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=291082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}