It was a game of two halves but ultimately one Storm are pleased to have come out the right side of.
Four tries in the opening 30 minutes saw Melbourne take a 26-0 lead into half-time before a resilient Wests Tigers came charging back to leave the final score at 29-20.
Asked for his summary of the game post-match, the Storm coach was understandably torn between two very different 40 minutes.
“They were obviously differing halves, we were obviously really happy with the first half,” Craig Bellamy said.
“Our defence in the first half was probably as good as it has been all year to be quite honest.
“I thought we started losing a little bit of grip on the footy in the last 10 minutes of the first half and that continued in the second half. We just couldn’t hang onto the ball early in the second half.
“Give the Tigers credit, the one thing I do know is if you give them momentum and you give them some footy, they’ll cause you some problems.
“They’ve got a lot of good strike players out wide as we’ve seen with Tedesco and their two young halves.”
Be at AAMI Park when we take on the Roosters, Saturday 23 July, 7:30pm.
The win sees Storm move three games clear inside the competition’s top four and sets up a blockbuster clash against the fourth-placed Broncos this Friday night.
While the first half was impressive on Sunday, the second half left the playing group well aware of where they need to improve this week.
“I think we all knew when we came into the sheds that the second half wasn’t good enough and wasn’t what we set out to do,” Cameron Smith said.
“We just spoke about the couple of things that we did well and the one thing we didn’t do so good which was hold onto the footy.
“We need to work on that for this short turnaround into Broncos because it is a huge game for us up there on Friday night.”
