Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy has admitted his side's semi-final victory over the Sydney Roosters "wasn't pretty", but was what the club had to do.
The Storm, who hosted the semi-final against the Roosters after falling short in a qualifying final away from home against the Brisbane Broncos last weekend, had a dramatic fightback from the game.
Brisbane had held the Storm to zero, the first team to do so in more than two years in a performance described by Bellamy himself as one where the playing group "looked like they had never met."
The game against the Roosters was less than pretty, and while the Storm took an early lead, they found themselves on the back foot for much of the second half before a late Will Warbrick try pushed the men in purple over the line.
Bellamy said he was proud of his side for hanging in the contest.
"Obviously really proud of how we stuck in there. It wasn't pretty without a doubt, but we needed to come back with a display like that after last week. We were all really disappointed with how we performed last week. That wasn't just the players, we help prepare them, so there was probably some things we didn't do so well either," Bellamy said during his post-game press conference.
"I was just really impressed with how the club fought back after last week."
Bellamy admitted his side had made hard work of the game.
"I think we made real hard work of it to be honest," Bellamy said.
"It felt like the first 20 or 30 minutes we were on top, but we couldn't quite squeeze extra points. After that, I thought we were chasing our tails for a fair bit.
"That ten minutes before halftime where we were defending our tryline, I was hoping it wasn't going to gas us too much, but I think it did to be quite honest. We did a good job there till Brandon barged over from dummy half.
"Some of our options at times were poor, and their kicking game was much superior to ours."
Melbourne will now prepare to head to Sydney next weekend for a difficult preliminary final clash against back-to-back defending premiers and this year's minor premiers, the Penrith Panthers.
That game will be a rematch of the 2020 grand finalists and the 2021 preliminary final, with the Storm and Panthers churning out some excellent contests in recent years.
