This was published 7 years ago
Melbourne Storm embrace the challenge of NZ Warriors without key stars
By Roy Ward
Melbourne Storm's pack will go into Friday night's game with New Zealand Warriors in Auckland without some of their best forwards.
Second rower Kevin Proctor left for Gold Coast during the off-season, the injured Tohu Harris is out for another 10 weeks with a fractured foot and next year will depart for the Warriors while their leader and standard bearer Jesse Bromwich is out for at least two weeks with a dislocated thumb.
Tim Glasby of the Storm is tackled by Michael Ennis of the Sharks.Credit: Getty Images
All three are New Zealand internationals who usually win some extra crowd support when back at home but more noticeably they have left a large number of hit-ups, tackles and support play for their replacements to handle.
Last week Felise Kaufusi and Kenny Bromwich showed they are capable of taking on their second row roles while Jordan McLean, Tim Glasby and younger interchange players like Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Christian Welch handled themselves well after Jesse Bromwich was forced off with his injury 10 minutes into the game last week.
But backing up those performances both this week and for the rest of their careers is now the challenge for the Storm's forwards and Glasby said it was one they would be embracing come Friday night.
Glasby has been selected to wear Bromwich's usual No 8 jersey although the Storm always reserve the right to switch around their side on game day depending on who they name on their bench.
"I'm really happy with how the whole pack stepped up, Jordan McLean had a tremendous game," Glasby said.
"Christian Welch and Nelson [Asofa-Solomona] played more minutes than they probably ever have before in a game.
"So they did really well and the challenge is for them to keep doing that until Jesse comes back and that's on myself as well – we all have a big job to do.
"Hopefully we can get it done."
Jesse Bromwich, who this week re-signed with the club for at least three more years, is missing his first game since late in season 2014 and Glasby said the whole side had big boots to fill.
"It's probably just more playing longer minutes and the other thing is that he leads our pack, a lot of people think he is the best front rower in the game," Glasby said.
"He has strong carries, strong defence and his talk around the ruck is really good, plus he has a lot of skill so that is a huge gap to fill and it's on all of us to pick up the slack and do our best to fill in there."
But while the Storm will miss their stars, Glasby made the point that injuries to the Storm's established outside backs last year led to them discovering the talents of star winger Suliasi Vunivalu.
Forwards Joe Stimson, Mark Nicholls and Vincent Leuluai were all picked in the club's 21-man travel squad and if any of them are selected will be making their Storm debuts with Stimson making his full NRL debut.
"It is a lot of talent missing but we had a lot of outside backs injured last year and it gave other blokes opportunities and that's how we found Suli [Suliasi Vunivalu]," Glasby said.
"Suli may not have got that opportunity unless we had all those injuries last year.
"So hopefully we can see a similar thing this year, get a young fella in and hopefully they can take it with two hands."
The Warriors have named an ominous side with fullback Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, halfback Shaun Johnson and forwards like Ryan Hoffman and Simon Mannering all expected to feature.
The Storm play the Warriors in Auckland on Friday night at 6pm AEDT.