Melbourne are walking a fine line between rest and maintaining a hard edge ahead of next week's NRL preliminary final.
Storm coach Craig Bellamy has treated his players to a low-key week on the training track after Saturday's bruising win over Parramatta.
The 18-16 victory at AAMI Park earned Melbourne a week's break and secured a third successive preliminary final berth -- their ninth in the past 12 years.
Despite that wealth of experience, Bellamy admits it's still a tricky path to tread.
"Sometimes if you have a week off it does pull your momentum up and the teams that keep playing get some momentum," Bellamy told reporters on Thursday.
"Hopefully having that week off is going to help us freshen up a little bit, so we can go a bit stronger on Friday night.
"But we've got to get our training right.
"We're going to have to do some contact work, you'd like to be able to not do any but you just can't go for two weeks without contact and a bit of game simulation.
"There has been a lot of toing and froing from the coaches and we certainly asked our senior players' opinions as well.
"But we've been there a few times before so we'd like to think we've got a pretty good feel for it.
"Hopefully we've got it right."
Bellamy said a few players had been on light duties before the squad is given Friday and Saturday off to freshen up.
He added that fullback Billy Slater had pulled up well after copping a knock to a knee against the Eels.
Bellamy laughed off suggestions the hard-fought win over Parramatta had exposed chinks in the minor premier's armour.
"It's quite funny ... this time last week everybody said we couldn't be beat," he said.
"It was ours to lose then all of a sudden everyone knows how to beat us.
"There were a lot of positives to come out of it for us (but) there are some things that we want to improve on without doubt."
The Storm will play the winner of Friday night's semi-final between Brisbane and Penrith in a preliminary final at AAMI Park on Friday week.
Share
