Melboure Rebels coach Damien Hill impressed by his team's composure against Stormers

DAMIEN Hill's unswerving commitment to development will remain unchanged as the Melbourne coach attempts to create a winning formula.

DAMIEN Hill's unswerving commitment to development will remain unchanged as the Melbourne coach attempts to create a winning formula while his own future hangs in the balance.

Deeply satisfied after the Rebels' magnificent 30-21 win over the Stormers, Hill has potentially only four games left as Melbourne coach.

He has been invited to reapply for his position and, with a 3-9 haul this season, will need more success in remaining games against the Waratahs, Brumbies, Reds and Highlanders.

Hill could at least breathe slightly easier after his greenhorn team upstaged the 2012 minor premier to end a run of four narrow defeats.

With 16 of his 22 players at AAMI Park on Friday either in their first or second season of Super Rugby, Hill was elated at his squad's growing maturity.

"I'm exceptionally pleased with the way the young guys are coming through,'' he said. "It takes a while to acclimatise to this level and that's what they're doing. They're making every post a winner at the moment and that should bode well for the future.

"The staff and the players have been seeing for a long time the improvements that have been there but like most things it doesn't come easy. It takes a lot of hard work and the work they've put in over the last five weeks in part in terms of their performances on the field is evidence of that.

"If it was an easy competition or an easy game to play you'd get a lot different results than we're getting at the moment. But it's tough, it's exceptionally tough, week in and week out and it was a courageous effort by the guys.''

After gutting losses of less than six points to the Kings, reigning premier Chiefs, seven-time champion Crusaders and traditional power Blues, the Rebels are clearly building.

Hill, who wants to continue as coach after succeeding World Cup-winning Rod Macqueen, was most impressed by his team's composure.

"They've got to view this in context of the last five weeks,'' he said. "They've played exceptionally well over the last month and just barely lost and that extra 10 minutes of composure led to a win.

"That little two to three per cent improvement has led to this result. It just puts things into perspective in regards the value of the team and the strength of the performance when there's 15 players united and on the same page.''

Hill said Melbourne's unheralded depth - exposed by the absence of Kurtley Beale, James O'Connor, Cooper Vuna, Richard Kingi and Angus Roberts - was pivotal against the massive Stormers.

He was especially delighted with rookie flyhalf Bryce Hegarty, scrumhalf Nic Stirzaker and winger Kimami Sitauti. "You need to have that (depth) in this competition,'' he said. "Players need to drop out, come in and it needs to be as seamless as you can and that's what happened tonight and it's outstanding for young Bryce to stand up and do what he did in his (starting) debut.

The win leaves Melbourne in fourth spot on the Australian conference with 28 points - only six behind Friday's opponent, Waratahs. In further evidence of growth, the Rebels have this season accumulated eight bonus points. Only the Blues (9) have more.

Captain Scott Higginbotham, certain to be named today in Australia's squad to face the British and Irish Lions next month, said Friday's win was "great for the club.''

The former Red said the Stormers erred by not taking penalty shots, preferring set pieces instead to hammer Melbourne's defence.

"They obviously thought they could beat us easily if they wanted to do that,'' he said. "They're obviously thinking they can score tries and not take the three points, so credit to us for holding them out in defence.''