A dependable member of Craig Bellamy's squad, Ryan Hinchcliffe will play a big role for Melbourne again in 2014. He chats with Storm TV on the year ahead.
Hinchcliffe missed just one game in 2013, following on from his 27 game season the previous year. The lock forward is looking forward to stepping up his game as the new year approaches.
"For me personally, I want to improve on the season I had last year," Hinchcliffe said.
"I thought I had an okay season but I want to try and take that to another level this year with my leadership and just try and add a couple of strings to my bow when I'm playing."
The 29-year old believes Melbourne's high standards will hold them in good stead for the new season as they look to better their semi-final finish in 2013. However Hinchcliffe understands Storm's need to keep moving forward and continue to develop certain areas for 2014.
"We're always going to be very competitive, we set really high standards for ourself on and off the field," Hinchcliffe said.
"I think that enables us to be reasonably consistent.
"There's definitely some areas we need to improve on form last year an we're putting a big focus on that during our pre-season."
Consistency is one area the lock forward highlighted as an area of improvement for Storm in the new season.
"Probably the thing that let us down was we were just very inconsistent," Hinchcliffe said.
"We were good sometimes, we were ordinary sometimes as well. I think that comes back to a little bit of inconsistency at training.
"We've been quite strict on that…which can hopefully lead into us being a little bit more consistent this year."
