In a warning to the rest of the competition, Melbourne Storm fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen says the ladder leader’s star-studded spine reached a “turning point” in the past two games after injury kept them apart for the bulk of a season that looks set to end with another minor premiership.
Despite coach Craig Bellamy flagging some potential rests for players in the final three rounds, with a two-two spot locked in and two trips to Queensland coming up, Papenhuyzen said he wanted to “play through” to ensure he built his game to a point where he can have the best possible impact in the finals.
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The superstar fullback has shelved thoughts about his future, with a new contract at Melbourne yet to be signed, to focus on getting “back into a bit of a rhythm” having missed nearly two months through the middle of the season with another leg injury.
Having only played 15 games across the previous two “turbulent” seasons, again due to injury, he has no interest in sitting down to preserve himself for the playoffs.
“I think everyone’s pretty keen to play. I know I’m definitely not taking a break if I don’t have anything wrong with me,” he said ahead of Storm’s final home match for the regular season against the Dolphins on Saturday at AAMI Park.
“I’d rather just play all the way through and that starts this week.
“I think my past couple years have been a little bit turbulent, so understandably people are talking (about his future), but I think I just wanted to focus on playing a few games and probably part of the reason why I don’t want to be rested, I just want to keep playing and get back into a bit of a rhythm.”
Papenhuyzen is confident that rhythm is starting to flow between himself and Storm’s key playmakers Cameron Munster, Jahrome Hughes and captain and hooker Harry Grant.
The quartet have now played four games in a row together after Munster’s return from a hip injury, when he came off the bench against Parramatta, with three wins from four games, including last week’s take-down of premiership rivals Penrith on their home ground.
“I think I saw some stat the other day that we’ve played maybe 16 games together or something and we’ve won 14, so it’s pretty good,” Papenhuyzen said.
“I think early on it’s hard to get your sort of bearings of when you’ve got to get up on the footy or when to back off a little bit.
“But we had a few discussions the past fortnight about how we can best play to our abilities and weave in and out of games, so I think we’ve sort of marked that off now and got a bit of a structure around it.
“And then once we had that structure, it was relaying it to the forward pack, being like, ‘OK, we’re going to do this at this period of time. Don’t feel like we’re taking your roles, but we’ve just got to sort of blend in and make sure we’re all getting hands on the footy rather than one of us dominating’.
“We’re still finding that balance, but I think the past fortnight’s been a bit of a turning point.”
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