Storm coach Craig Bellamy has offered his players a simple ultimatum following their 50-10 drubbing at the hands of the Panthers, with the only silver lining that skipper Harry Grant\u2019s knee injury isn\u2019t serious.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s best dummy-half was taken from the field in the second half on Friday night with the initial diagnosis that he\u2019d suffered some bone bruising and should be fine to face the Warriors next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fine. I just got a knock and jolted the knee,\u201d he said at the post-match press conference which he would have skipped if the injury was serious<\/p>\n
\u201cThe physios took me off pretty quickly. If it was a tighter contest then they\u2019d probably assess me on the run and then go, but they sort of took me off and assessed me. It\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The injury scare is the least of their concerns after they slumped to a third loss on the trot against a Panthers side that has one hand on the premiership trophy.<\/p>\n
The Storm completed 94 per cent of their sets but missed 41 tackles as they suffered their heaviest loss since the 2008 Grand Final. <\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s grand finalists were without several key players but it wasn\u2019t an excuse, with Bellamy warning them that training is going to be brutal next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just go a little bit harder,\u201d he said, with Shawn Blore and Jack Howarth hoping to return from their respective injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they don\u2019t want to go harder then they can go and play reserve grade and we\u2019ll bring some young blokes up. That\u2019s how we\u2019ve always handled these situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just got to learn from tonight and be better. The disappointing thing for me was our defence. You don\u2019t have to be a brain surgeon to be a good defender \u2013 you just have to work hard and be determined.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conceding 50 means the Storm can\u2019t win the premiership based on the infamous stat, but it wouldn\u2019t matter anyway given the Panthers look unstoppable at the moment after recording another thumping victory.<\/p>\n
They are the first team in history to win their opening five matches by more than 20 points, with winger Tom Jenkins bagging a record 12 tries already. <\/p>\n
This is a team that won four premierships in a row before the streak was snapped last year, but this current squad is playing better than anything we\u2019ve seen from Penrith. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about leaving your ego at the door and trying to get better,\u201d star halfback Nathan Cleary replied when asked what was motivating them after all these years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, we didn\u2019t win the premiership last year so it\u2019s there on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you start the year, everyone starts on zero again and there\u2019s a new premiership to be won, so what\u2019s happened in the past has happened in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re all old, we can tell our grandkids about it. But for now, it\u2019s why not chase after it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Storm coach Craig Bellamy has offered his players a simple ultimatum following their 50-10 drubbing at the hands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,8089,8095,1571,12979,1203,761,762,158,5357,285456,85,37284,17711],"class_list":{"0":"post-583363","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-craig-bellamy","11":"tag-harry-grant","12":"tag-history","13":"tag-injuries","14":"tag-nathan-cleary","15":"tag-national-rugby-league","16":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","17":"tag-nrl","18":"tag-panthers","19":"tag-round-five","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-stats","22":"tag-storm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583363","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=583363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}