How Justin Olam went from Papua New Guinea to the Melbourne Storm

Twenty years ago, Justin Olam watched a fellow Papua New Guinean win a premiership for Melbourne. Now Olam is in the same team, doing the same things as he tries to boost the Storm’s premiership push.

Justin Olam of the Storm celebrates their win over the Dragons during the Round 16 NRL match between the St George Illawarra Dragons and Melbourne Storm at WIN Stadium in Wollongong, Thursday, July 4, 2019. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins) NO ARCHIVING, EDITORIAL USE ONLY

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Justin Olam caught only the end of the 1999 NRL grand final on a generator-powered television in a village in Papua New Guinea.

Unlike the masses summoned to the screen to watch Melbourne Storm and PNG trailblazer Marcus Bai create history, Olam, then just six, saw it differently.

“I was seeing myself,” Olam said.

“My mindset was always like that. ‘I’m going to play here, it’s not that hard’.”

It taught Olam a valuable lesson, those formative years, having to walk up to 90 minutes to neighbouring villages to watch “big games” — punctuality.

“If you got there early you could sit closer to the screen,” Olam said.

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Olam has become one of the finds of the season for Melbourne. AAP Image/Scott Barbour.

“It’s always so loud, sometimes you don’t listen to whatever they’re saying, but it can get very quiet too when people want to hear what the commentators are going to say.

“It’s unreal, I think it’s different from watching it live, watching back home in front of the screen is so good, it’s hectic.”

Hectic is also the nice way to describe Olam’s job security at Storm, with premiership flank Curtis Scott, Marion Seve and mid-season recruit Solomone Kata breathing down his neck.

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Olam, by his own admission, is not the best or most experienced centre at Storm, but his surprise late-season emergence has again whipped rugby league-mad PNG into frenzy.

The 25 year-old carved from stone has scored four tries in eight consecutive games since Round 15.

Olam has Melbourne’s left centre spot locked down. AAP Image/Dean Lewins.

“I think that’s the thing about Storm, if you’re playing well they’ll keep playing you,” Olam said.

“I try and play well and play hard because in my position there is four or five better players out there and more experienced as well, waiting to come and play.

“I just have to do my part and try to play hard and hopefully stay in that squad.”

Destructive Olam opened his NRL account in Round 17, running over the top of Cronulla veteran and NSW Blues stalwart Josh Morris.

He went back to the well the next week, crashing into Gold Coast fullback AJ Brimson to score.

Olam is a star back home. Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images.

Both, Morris and Brimson, took no further part in the respective games after their experience with the PNG school of hard knocks.

But there is nothing sinister about Olam’s style.

In short, he does only what he knows.

“That’s how we play back at home,” Olam said.

“Our junior teams don’t get the coaching (skills and structure) … it’s take the ball, run hard and tackle hard.

“One thing about Storm, they didn’t change that part of my game. They want me to run hard, tackle hard but they gave me other skills … to play smart as well.”