Melbourne will be ready right from the opening second of next week’s Qualifying Final against Parramatta.
Craig Bellamy’s men will take a seven game winning streak into this year’s finals series but will come up against the last side to have beaten them.
That was back in Round 18 when a Storm side without six of its Origin stars lost to the Eels 22-6 at AAMI Park.
Next week's game will be at the same venue but that will be just about be all the two games will have in common.
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Storm will be at full strength this time and ready from the get-go, unlike in that previous meeting that saw the Eels race out to a 16-nil lead after just 22 minutes.
“They got off to a really quick start that night. We were missing a few through Origin, without a doubt,” Bellamy said.
“We paid for a bad start, a slow start so we will be trying to make up for that this week.
“It was a while ago now, they’ve played a lot of games since, so have we, we’ve just got to get ourselves prepared as best we can so hopefully we can be at our best.”
No doubt much of the planning for the opposition will centre around Semi Radradra, the Eels winger who has hit a hot streak with seven tries in his last two games.
Radradra was dominant in that Round 18 game against Storm, running for an equal game-high 201 metres on the night.
The Fijian will be a tough man for the purple wall to contain.
“He has had a pretty big impact on a few games lately,” Bellamy said.
“Obviously we need to be aware of that and the last couple of games he has played for them have been outstanding.
“We will need to do a good job on him defensively but having said that it will also be about what we do on the players inside of him and how we defend that.
“They’ve won their last couple of games really well, their game against Brisbane was a tremendous so they’ll come down here full of confidence but we’ve just got to get our game right.”
A day and time for next week's Qualifying final will be confirmed on Sunday night after the final home and away game of the season.
