Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy has credited his players' gutsy defence effort as the key to Saturday night's 20-14 come-from-behind win over the Newcastle Knights at EnergyAustralia Stadium.
The Storm came back from 14-0 down after 21 minutes to make it 14-12 at half-time. But a number of uncharacteristic errors in their own territory gifted the Knights a mountain of possession in the second half.
However, the Storm players dug in to defend their line and snatched the win against the run of play with some wily work from playmaker Brett Finch putting centre Dane Nielsen away for the match-winning try 11 minutes from fulltime.
"It was a pretty gutsy effort out there tonight," Bellamy said after the match.
"Even when we were 14-0 down I wasn't too discouraged. I thought that we weren't playing that bad to be 14-0 down. I could see if we hung onto the footy and did what we practiced during the week that there would be some points there."
"We made it really hard for ourselves in the second half. I think we went five or six sets that we didn't complete and obviously we gave the Knights some field position but we were very resilient upon on our try-line and I thought at the end of the day that is what won us the game."
Bellamy acknowledged his side's dropped ball was most likely a combination of a lack of concentration from his players plus some aggressive defence from the Knights, but he said his side's determination to defend on their line was the important feature of their game, and a great signal for the season ahead.
"You couldn't fault our attitude to hang in there and keep defending as we did," he said.
"We weren't pushing a whole heap of passing and we weren't dropping anything cold, we just seemed to be losing them in the tackles, so at the end of the day it was good to get away with the result."
"When you do that you are putting plenty of effort in and you've got a bit attitude so that is a really important part of the early season for us with so many away games."
Bellamy also credited Finch for an outstanding game after he had a hand in all three of his side's three tries including smart play for the final try where he made a try out of nothing.
Finch ghosted out of dummy half on the halfway line and scooted into space then drew a host of Knights defenders before offloading to Nielsen, who sprinted away for a try under the posts.
"I thought he (Finch) was our best player tonight," Bellamy said. "I coached him in country one year and he is just a competitor. He wants to go out there and compete."
"When the team is in trouble he is the one that wants to get you out of trouble, when you are on the front foot he wants to get you further on the front foot."
"That is the reason we brought him to the club and he has been a huge influence in our three wins this year, including the World Club Challenge and we are very happy with him. He has been close to our best player each week."
"The big thing for me is he wants to compete and he is inspiring the players out there and that is important for us right now because we have a lot of young players in the squad, so he is doing a great job for us."