Storm coach Craig Bellamy says grand final defeat will spur his team in 2025

While the Penrith team will break up after their grand final win, the beaten Storm will stick together and come back for more.

The Penrith premiership dynasty was born in 2020 after their young squad lost the grand final to the battle-hardened Storm.

Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy hopes his side can use Sunday’s defeat as something similar following their 14-6 loss to a team that has won four premierships in a row since that heartbreaking night.

The minor premiers dominated the regular season with two wins over Penrith but they couldn’t complete the task against a team that knows how to get the job done on the biggest stage.

That wasn’t the case four years ago when they were overawed by the Storm for 50 minutes before they mounted a valiant late fightback, with Bellamy hopeful his side can learn plenty from Sunday’s painful defeat.

“Hopefully, we’ll be wiser for tonight and learn a few things,” he said.

“I don’t think we’re going to lose too many of our squad next year.

“There’s a bit of a theory that you need to lose one to win one, so hopefully that’s the case.

Storm players react after the grand final loss. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

“They were too good for us. They’ve been there and done that, and they’re relentless at doing what they knows works for them.

“We probably weren’t prepared to go as far as they did with our game plan.

“I was looking through our 2020 side during the week, and we had nine players from that squad that actually played against us this year in other teams.

“It was an inexperienced team for playing in a grand final, so hopefully we can build on that next year because we’re not losing too many players.”

That game plan was never going to be executed once their forwards were completely outplayed through the middle, with the Storm desperately missing the suspended Nelson-Asofa-Solomona.

Only one Storm forward cracked 100m, with Stefano Utoikamanu set to fix some of their issues when he arrives in the coming weeks.

“We did miss him, without a doubt,” Bellamy said of his suspended star.

“I’d be lying if I said we didn’t miss him because we were struggling to make metres early and that’s one of his real strengths.”

Xavier Coates in tears after the loss. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Storm skipper Harry Grant was terrific in defeat, but the rest of their star-studded spine couldn’t get into the contest despite Ryan Papenhuyzen, Jahrome Hughes and Cameron Munster being three of the four guys who were there in the 2020 decider.

The question now is whether this loss will fuel them to go to another level in 2025, with Melbourne well placed to not crumble like Souths, Parramatta and Brisbane have done after losing grand finals to the Panthers.

“We’ve had an incredible season and I think we learned how hard it is to get here over the last few years,” Grant said.

“We thoroughly enjoyed this week, but we probably learned what this week’s all about and what it takes to take your game to the next level.

“Once you do get here, it’s even harder to win.

“You’ve got to give them a lot of credit and a lot of respect for what they’ve done over the past four or five years.

“For our guys, this was the biggest game of our careers, so that’s a real lesson.”