Paul McGregor believes reports of Melbourne's death as an NRL force have been greatly exaggerated and is wary of the Big Three proving his point in their NRL season opener.
With club greats Cooper Cronk, Cameron Smith and Billy Slater, all 31, moving toward the twilight of their careers and the loss of Ryan Hoffman, many have tipped the Storm to slide back to the pack after being a dominant power for the last decade.
However St George Illawarra coach McGregor says there's no chance of the Dragons taking the Storm lightly when they meet at WIN Jubilee Oval on Monday night.
The Storm have been a bogey side for St George Illawarra since Melbourne's inception in 1998, with the Dragons winning just eight of 29 clashes between the two sides.
McGregor is also expecting the Storm to spring out of the blocks, with Melbourne having won their last 10 opening round matches.
"I see everyone's writing (the Storm) off and saying they won't make the eight, I find that very hard to believe," said McGregor.
"(Slater, Smith and Cronk) might be a year older but the guys around them are a year more experienced. Blokes like (Kevin) Proctor and (Tohu) Harris, they're a year older, they've becoming more valuable to the group."
The Dragons have this week been forced to deal with the distraction of Trent Merrin's signing with Penrith for 2016, and also have to plug the considerable hole left by the departure of Brett Morris to the Bulldogs.
McGregor thinks the Dragons are entering a new phase in 2015, pointing to the debut of exciting Fijian import Eto Nabuli and the combination of Gareth Widdop, Benji Marshall and Josh Dugan promising to go to another level.
"I think our combinations are stronger because they've been together a year longer," McGregor said.
"You only have to look at Gareth and Benji and Duges at the back - they're a lot more solid there.
"The depth in our squad is a lot better purely on the experience value.
"We lost 300 games of experience last year but replaced them with 650, guys that have played in grand finals and World Club Challenges."
Key Stats:
* The Dragons are chasing consecutive wins against the Storm for the first time since 1999.
* The Storm are Monday night football specialists - since 2007 they have won 22 of 33 games, the best winning percentage of any team in the competition for the fixture.
* If victorious against the Dragons, the Storm will become the first team in history to win 11 straight season openers.
* The Dragons conceded the fewest penalties in 2014 (5.4 per game), while the Storm conceded the equal most (7.6 per game).
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