They went inside 80 minutes of a grand remaining, however Storm star Cameron Munster says his facet should “find our DNA” after they had been thumped by Penrith to finish a season that was constantly inconsistent.
Written off earlier than the preliminary remaining even began, the Storm will really feel that they may have simply led at half-time after they scored early however bombed a number of probabilities which you merely can’t do towards a champion group like Penrith.
In the tip they accomplished simply 65 per cent of their units and fell aside defensively as Penrith’s relentless ball motion proved an excessive amount of for Melbourne to deal with.
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“We just didn’t ice our moments,” Munster lamented.
“It was a frustrating night because they didn’t make an error until the 60th minute. They didn’t give us an inch but we gave them a mile.
“I thought we were good in patches and we were on top at certain stages, but we made mistakes in the pressure moments and you can’t do that against quality sides in the finals.”
It’s been a wierd 12 months for the Storm who misplaced a stack of expertise with key forwards Felise Kaufusi, Brandon Smith and Jesse and Kenny Bromwich all leaving.
It was telling that no Storm ahead ran for 100 metres on Friday evening, with Penrith’s middles dominating the competition which allowed Nathan Cleary to run riot.
The Panthers piled on 38 factors which is essentially the most the Storm have allowed in a finals match since they had been humbled 40-0 within the 2008 decider.
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“Everyone talks about defence and it’s usually the best defensive team that wins the competition,” Munster stated.
“They’re the best defensive team in the comp so we need to go back to the drawing board and have a really hard pre-season in defence to try to find our DNA again because at the moment we’re leaking too many points.
“Melbourne Storm sides don’t do that. It’s been pretty embarrassing and I definitely need to work on my defence as well.
“We’ve got to be accountable for everything. If we can do that and look each other in the eye then it’s going to be a good year.”
Storm coach Craig Bellamy was clearly pissed off after the loss given his facet confirmed within the first half that that they had the sport plan to hassle the two-time defending premiers.
Melbourne lacked the intimidation issue and sophistication out broad to match it with the Panthers, with their second-half fadeout completely summing up their struggles this season which had been masked by a third-place end.
The Storm’s longest successful streak was 4 matches and got here within the remaining month of the common season, and whereas that’s one thing loads of groups can solely dream of, it’s the primary time they haven’t gained no less than 5 video games in a row since method again in 2015.
“We didn’t get ourselves a chance. We shot ourselves in the foot. We blew our foot off, actually,” Bellamy stated, with the Storm set to welcome Ryan Papenhuyzen again subsequent 12 months.
“We had some opportunities in the first half but we didn’t nail them and we didn’t ice them.
“Our game tonight was probably a small example of what we’ve been dishing up all year. It’s been up and down, up and down, inconsistency.
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“If we didn’t know that before tonight then we learnt a good lesson. Hopefully we might be able to take something out of it next season.
“It took us a little while to know what our best footy was and what worked for us (this year).
“We had a bit of a change in personnel in the off-season so that took a little while, but it just kept creeping in every now and then.
“We did a really good job to get to where we did on the table, but the finals series was basically what our season has been – up and down, up and down.
“You’re not going to go a long way in a competition unless you start evening that out.”
Source web site: www.foxsports.com.au
