It’s the final day of the NRL season and Melbourne assistant coach Ryan Hinchcliffe says the learnings from last year’s grand final loss to Penrith has the Storm players primed to go one better in 2025.
A 177-game Storm veteran who has won NRL premierships with Craig Bellamy as both a player and coach, Hinchcliffe knows his way around grand final week as well as anyone, and says no amount of preparation can replace actually being there.
“It’s been a huge help for our players to have that lived experience (from 2024),” Hinchcliffe told the media from Melbourne’s captain’s run at Accor Stadium.
“We talked about it last year going into the game, but for the players to live and breathe it, and experience what the week looked like and the big day and the commitments, they’ve been much more relaxed this time around.”
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“We had 14 guys who’d never played in a grand final last year, they’ve now been through that experience, they’ve learned from that and put some things in place throughout the year from those learnings,” Hinchcliffe added.
“We’ve made a couple of tweaks to our program (from 2024), but they’re in a good place to go out and play their best footy.”
Given the players are more relaxed, Hinchcliffe was also asked about the mood of Storm head coach Craig Bellamy who is about to guide a team into an NRL grand final for a record eleventh time.
“He’s actually been pretty relaxed, he doesn’t change too much week to week, Craig is very routine based,” Hinchcliffe grinned.
“Obviously it’s grand final and a do-or-die game, but our week stays pretty similar, we try not to change too much, Craig’s always been very strong on that.”
Of course, the Storm aren’t the only ones with the recent lived grand final experience—eleven of Broncos’ 18-man grand final squad featured in the 2023 loss to Penrith.