Melbourne Storm head coach Craig Bellamy has admitted his side's last two performances are a worry, with particular attention needed on their second halves.
After starting the season with back-to-back wins over the Parramatta EEls and St George Illawarra Dragons - the first dominant and the second inspired by Sua Fa'alogo late in the game - the Storm have fallen short against the Brisbane Broncos and North Queensland Cowboys over the last fortnight.
Saturday evening's game in Townsville was the second week in a row Melbourne have squandered a lead during the second half, and while Bellamy cautioned against a full blown panic, he admitted he was aware of the issue, and wanted his side to address it.
“Yeah, it is worrying,” he said during his post-game press conference in the North Queensland city.
“I don't know what the worry scale is, but yeah, it's worrying.
“I'm just probably a bit frustrated. You know, the last two games we've (lost) after having good leads,”
“You know 10, 12, 14 points I think. So that's a frustrating thing and why? We all might have a different opinion on the whys.
“But you've got to give the opposition credit too. In both second halves, last week and this week they played really well.
“But that pattern there is a pattern we don't want to keep going. So we need to try and work it out or get a little formula where it doesn't happen too often.”
The Storm were sloppy throughout the game, as they were against Brisbane in Round 3, with their attack at times looking clunky.
Defensively, they also were leaky in the second half against the Cowboys, and given the game in Round 2 against the Dragons needed Sua Fa'alogo magic to rescue it, the argument could easily be made that Melbourne have only had one strong performance across the opening month of the season.
A clearly frustrated Bellamy who now needs to prepare his team to play the Penrith Panthers next weekend called for honesty from his playing group.
“There's a few things that could be. Hopefully we can get some honesty from the players and there's probably a few things we are doing at training and in our meetings as well," the coach said.
“Hopefully we can be a bit more consistent over the 80 minutes.”
