Cameron Munster has slammed his side’s attitude as Craig Bellamy admitted his side’s defence is nowhere near ready for finals football after their 30-14 loss to the Broncos.
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After conceding 40 points in the second half to the Roosters last week, Bellamy was again disappointed with his side’s effort and application against the Broncos.
“Disappointing again to be quite honest,” Bellamy said.
“We started the game, looked like we lacked the whole loop of patience. Pretty undisciplined as well, a lot of penalties and six agains.
“The biggest disappointment for me over the last two weeks, we’ve had 70 points put on us. That’s not a good sign coming into finals, having that many points scored against you.
“That’s the thing for me that will need to get a bit tougher on us. I like to pride myself on the defence.
“With the team we’ve got, we’ve probably been a bit more known for our attack the last couple of years, but defence is what wins big games.
“Big games are just about to start and we’re nowhere near where we should be in that department.”
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Compounding the loss was the suspected broken wrist to Jahrome Hughes and Bellamy all but confirmed the worst for the Storm halfback, admitting he may have erred in picking him to return from a shoulder injury in a game that had no baring on where the Storm finished on the ladder.
“Actually, I’m not quite sure if it’s his wrist or just halfway up the forearm, but I think it’s a break without a doubt,” Bellamy said.
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“He’s in plaster already. That wasn’t a great idea to put him back in this week, but anyway.
“I’d imagine it’s season over, I can’t answer that question directly, but I’d imagine it would be.”
Munster admitted Hughes would be a big loss, but has confidence in back-up halves Tyran Wishart and Jonah Pezet, but was more worried about his side’s defence than the injury to his Storm teammate.
“It would be nice, but we’ve got Pezet and Wishart there, they are good quality players,” Munster said.
“I played with them last three or four weeks before Jahrome came back, so we had a really good combination.
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“I think we lost one and that was the Roosters together. It’s obviously going to be disappointing not having Hughes, he’s such an integral part to our attack and our defence. “He’s a class player, don’t get me wrong. He won the Dally M for a reason last year. But we’ve got some good depth in our halves.
“We’ve got a lot of belief in those two guys, Paz. I know a lot of people are going to put a lot of speculation, a lot of stuff in the headlines and media about whether we can do it or not.
“But that’s what you sell the papers for. We’ve got to worry about our own four walls. Like Craig spoke about, we’ve got to have defence wins games and we’ve leaked 70 points.
“If we can work on our defence, points will come. We’ve got to have a good hard look at ourselves and our defence if we just have an attitude problem. At the moment, the last couple of weeks, our attitude stinks.”
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Munster called on his side to get tougher on their performance and not rely on preparation to get them through games at the business end of the season.
“Disappointing leaking that many points, but we tried to address it in the week,” Munster said.
“I thought we had a great preparation. I thought we really had our heads on. But sometimes the preparation doesn’t mean you’re going to play well on the weekend.
“The attitude was all there during the week. Whether we might need something to throw a spanner in the works next week, who knows.
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“But for us, we can’t just rely on our preparation to get us through the game, so we’ve got to work on our defence next week.
“Like Bellyache talks about, bite on the mouth guard and get your shoulders ready for next week and it is one of those things that we have to address because Dogs are a good team and they won’t go away.
“So we’ve got them at home. The crowd’s not going to always get us home, but it’ll be nice to play in front of our home crowd and fingers crossed we can deliver.”
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