Melbourne Storm skipper Cameron Smith is doing all he can to convince coach Craig Bellamy he's fit to play in their NRL season opener against St George Illawarra.
Originally slated for a round four return following ankle surgery in December, Smith trained strongly with the Storm on Tuesday.
Bellamy said the Kangaroos captain would play provided he completed the week's training ahead of the Jubilee Oval match next Monday night.
He also needed to do some extra kicking practice after only recently testing his ankle at that.
"He will need to do all of the sessions," Bellamy said on Tuesday.
"He got through a fair bit of it last week to be fair to him and he looked quite good.
"He's obviously got a little bit of stiffness and pain there but his fitness level was good as well."
Bellamy said while Smith would no doubt put his hand up, he would be guided by the medical staff's opinion.
The inclusion of Smith would be a boon for the Storm, who are looking to start the season with a bang after their limp finals exit at the hands of the Bulldogs last season.
Bellamy identified their mental toughness as an area they needed to address in the off-season.
Put through some gruelling training sessions, he said he wouldn't know until the season got fully underway whether their methods had worked.
"It's one of the things we've been really aware of and tried to work hard on," Bellamy said.
"We're going to have to get into some tough periods in games to see how far we've come in that area."
Bellamy said he'd watched plenty of pre-season footage of the Dragons and had been impressed by what they had to offer, particularly in attack.
"I think they were starting to improve last year without a doubt.
"They have a lot of dangerous players in their side like Josh Dugan at fullback, Jason Nightingale on the wing and Mitch Rein is a very good player as well.
"They gave a lot of strike power there, they are going to be a really dangerous side for us."
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