Sometimes all it takes is a conversation to get things back on track.
NRL referees flew down to Melbourne on Tuesday and paid a visit to Storm training to offer feedback on how Craig Bellamy’s side can better adapt to rule interpretations.
After four rounds Storm have conceded more penalties (45) than any other team in the competition and last week 19 penalties was the most by any team in the NRL era.
Rather than scratch their heads, the Storm coaching staff sought council from the game’s whistle blowers and it appears to have paid instant dividends.
“We have worked hard on it, the referees came down yesterday and did some work with us,” Bellamy said.
“Hopefully we can see some results there on Saturday night.”
For players, the responsibility lies in breaking out of bad habits that in the past have gone unnoticed but are now being called out by referees in the blink of an eye.
“When you’ve done things one way for a long time you’ve got that muscle memory that comes into it,” Ryan Hoffman said.
“For us as players the referees are setting the rules and we just need to abide by them. We got some clarity on a few things from the referees yesterday which I think were quite helpful, we put those things into practice at training so hopefully we will see some much better discipline from us.”
