NRL: Storm ready for bruising season

MELBOURNE: Melbourne are bracing for a torrid start to the NRL season as reigning premiers, world champions and major drawcard, but Storm coach Craig Bellamy is confident his stars can overcome a limited off-season.

The likes of Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Greg Inglis had only a short break over the summer given they played in last year's Four Nations tournament and last week played in the win over Leeds in the World Club Challenge.

There is no reprieve, as Melbourne travel in the first three rounds of their title defence, starting with tonight's clash against Cronulla at Toyota Park.

Bellamy expected the first two games in particular to be tough, given the Sharks and then Newcastle would be desperate to perform for their home fans.

"Every team when they've got their first home game that seems to be a real big game for everybody," said Bellamy.

"We run into Cronulla this week and then Newcastle are playing their first home game against us as well.

"We know we're going to be in those first couple of rounds, playing against fired-up teams really ready to go out there and make a statement, so we need to prepare for that and it's pretty similar to what we faced against Leeds.

"We expected a real physical game against Leeds, we got it, and we expect a real physical game against Cronulla and I'm sure we'll get it."

Bellamy said the Storm were a little flat at training last week after returning from England, but was impressed by Monday's session and was confident his key players could get by despite having such little rest.

"We had eight guys in the Australian and New Zealand sides [last year], they haven't had too much of a pre-season, I must say," he said.

"But all the other guys have had a good pre-season and some of the results of that showed over against Leeds.

"A lot of our guys had had only the one game before that game and Leeds had had five or six, so I thought our fitness was pretty good.

"The guys who played for Australia and New Zealand, a lot of those guys are older guys, so they've had a lot of pre-seasons and it doesn't take them as much to get up to a certain fitness level when they've got that base."

Bellamy is likely to play Smith at halfback in the absence of regular No 7 Cooper Cronk, who is recovering from groin surgery and hopes to return in round four.

Bellamy said the Storm had to be ready for Cronulla to be sharper in attack.

"They've had guys who can certainly offload in the club before in [Anthony] Tupou and [Paul] Gallen, but adding [Adam] Cuthbertson there, and I've noticed [Kade] Snowden and young Luke Douglas, they've been off-loading a lot in the trials as well, so that seems to be a bit of an emphasis for the Sharks," he said.

- AAP