It may have tested the heart rate but in the end Storm came up with the desired result, an 18-16 win over the Dragons at AAMI Park to kick off 2016.
Head Coach Craig Bellamy admitted it was a far from polished performance from his side yet the resilience they displayed saw plenty of promising signs come out of the performance.
Storm were slow out of the blocks and soon found themselves 10-0 down after 15 minutes before three unanswered steadied the ship and a resolute defence hold firm in the second half.
It was the resolute nature of the performance that left the master tactician pleased at the end of the 80 minutes.
“I am really happy with the guys, the way they got back into it in the first half and with the way they hung on towards the end,” Bellamy said.
Be at AAMI Park when Storm take on the Titans on Sunday 13 March.
“I thought we showed a lot of fight there and it just goes to show that when you get a run of possession you are probably going to score points.
“I think we improved in our catching and passing tonight but we need to improve on our communication and knowing where the passing is going, I think that was probably a bit of a problem for us.
“But it is early in the season and there are a lot of good signs for me to think that this team has got some will in it and it’s got some fight in it. If it has we will be a competitive team.”
Slippery conditions made life tough for both sides, who were prone to errors throughout the contest.
There is nothing better than a win in Round 1 but for the Storm skipper it is the room for the improvement where the most opportunity exists.
“Two points in the first round is great, it is like gold getting two points in these first few rounds but there is certainly a lot of work there for us to improve on which is good,” Cameron Smith said.
‘You don’t want to come out in Round 1 and think ‘where do we go from here?’ There are a lot of things we can work on from this game.
‘I was really please with how we got ourselves back in the game, we sort of put ourselves back in that position to be quite honest.
‘We just wanted to play simple and apply pressure back on the Dragons and I thought we did that with our completions.”
Storm will be back at home this Sunday at 6.30pm to host the Gold Coast Titans at AAMI Park.
