The Melbourne Storm are on an incredible 18-match winning streak, but star half Cameron Munster believes it may not be the worst thing for his team to have a loss before finals.
If the Storm manage to fight their way past the Gold Coast Titans, who gave them something of a scare earlier in the season and will be desperate given their current predicament with relation to the finals, they will equal the greatest winning streak in Australian top-flight rugby league history at 19 matches alongside the 1975 Sydney Roosters.
Already the Storm have passed the greatest winning streak in the NRL-era, passing that of the 2002 Bulldogs and 2020 Panthers with last week's scrappy win over the Canberra Raiders.
Melbourne would need to win 24 straight to win the premiership without a single loss, and Munster told The Daily Telegraph from a motivation point of view, a loss wouldn't be a disaster.
โLook, it would probably be nice to lose one before the finals come just to get a bit of a taste and a bit more motivation I reckon,โ Munster said.
โThe drive is still there. The boys still want to succeed and play well for each other. I guess there is a lot of talk about people playing well and going through the competition undefeated and then losing the grand final.โ
Munster said it wasn't out of the question for Melbourne to go the rest of the season without a win though.
โIf we get to the grand final, I canโt see why we canโt just win it without losing a game. There is a lot of speculation and hoodoos that comes with not losing a game, but that is just a mindset and attitude,โ he said.
The Penrith Panthers famously won 17 straight in 2020, starting with a win in Round 6 against the Storm, only to go on and lose the grand final to the same team, their first loss since Round 5 in the shortened season.
