Melbourne skipper Harry Grant says his side can take belief and confidence they are on track for another NRL title after wrapping up the minor premiership with two games to spare.
The Storm took an insurmountable ladder lead with their 48-6 demolition of the Dolphins at AAMI Park, moving to 42 points on the ladder.
They went six points clear their closest challengers for the J.J Giltinan Shield, with Penrith falling away with their shock 22-18 loss to Canberra earlier on Saturday.
Melbourne still have away games against North Queensland and Brisbane but coach Craig Bellamy said they would rest players as they look to launch into the finals and try to end Penrith’s three-year title domination.
The Storm’s last premiership came in 2020 while this is their sixth minor premiership in 14 years.
“I think as a player, as a team, we should take a lot of belief and confidence out of that,” Grant said after the match.
“To win games week in, week out and finish on top of the ladder and then there’s still two games to go so we should take a lot of confidence out of that as a playing group.
“It does mean a lot, but I think the positive thing too is we’ve locked in two home finals.”
The Dolphins stuck with Melbourne until the 19th minute, when youngster Sua Faalogo opened the scoring when he crossed for the first of his two tries.
But the wheels start wobbling for the visitors a minute later when they lost both star playmaker Kodi Nikorima and veteran prop Jesse Bromwich to head knocks.
At the same time ex-Storm back-rower Felise Kaufusi was put on report for a late shot on Cameron Munster.
Kaufusi really cost the Dolphins with five minutes left in the half when he was sin-binned for intentional offside with Melbourne on the march.
In his absence the Storm ran in three tries to put the game virtually out of reach.
Back-rower Alec McDonald crashed over the line before quick ball found barnstorming centre Jack Howarth to push the lead out to 22-0 at halftime.
Winger Faalogo then added his second by pouncing on a Hughes grubber a minute into the second half.
Grant left the field with 15 minutes to play but said it was a “precautionary” measure, with the result already wrapped up.
The Dolphins got on the scoreboard in the 66th minute through centre Jake Averillo but the Storm kept coming with two more tries including one by giant prop Nelson Asofa-Solomona in his 200th game.
“They were too good for us,” said Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett, whose losing record against Bellamy stretched to 13 straight.
“That’s our worst performance of the season – we’ve been holding together and haven’t won a lot of games in the last few months but we’ve hanging in pretty good and there were moments tonight that we did that but there were lots of times that we didn’t.”
The Dolphins remain in ninth spot, giving eighth-placed St George Illawarra the chance to move four points clear if they can beat Cronulla in their clash on Sunday in Wollongong.
The Dolphins face the 10th-placed Broncos and then an away match against Newcastle.
