The Friday night semi-final blockbuster between the Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters promises to be an explosive affair after a war of words erupted between the teams.
Former Storm hooker turned Rooster Brandon Smith fired the first shot when he called the Storm’s horror 26-0 NRL qualifying-final loss to the Broncos “putrid”.
“Hopefully they bring that performance again,” Smith said.
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“That would be great. I don’t think they are going to do that.”
Storm five-eighth Cameron Munster was surprised when told about Smith’s comments and sent a warning to his former teammate.
“Did he say that?” Munster replied when told of Smith’s comments.
“He pretty much says whatever comes off the top of his head, a little bit like myself.
“But we’ll see who has the last laugh on Friday.”
Smith, who played 107 games for the Storm after making his debut in 2017, will come up against Melbourne hooker Harry Grant who described Smith as a “character”.
“It was a very poor performance and he’s a character of the game so you don’t want to deter him from speaking the truth,” Grant said.
“It’s funny the way the script has panned out for him, coming back for a final against Melbourne Storm.
“We know the player he is and what he’s capable of.”
Melbourne halfback Jahrome Hughes said Smith was “probably right” about his assessment of the Storm’s loss to the Broncos.
“We were pretty putrid … he’s (Smith) probably right,” Hughes said.
“We were what he said, we weren’t happy with how we played.
“‘Cheese’ (Smith) is always going to say something cheeky so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s texting me soon trying to get under my skin.”
Speaking after the loss to the Broncos, Munster delivered a brutally honest assessment of the Storm’s performance.
“Dogs**t,” Munster replied to Nine’s Danika Mason when asked about the performance.
“Sorry for swearing, but our spine — myself, Hughesy (Jahrome Hughes), Harry (Grant), Meanes (Nick Meaney) — were disconnected tonight.
“It just showed on the footy field. Tried things and it didn’t work.
“We tried to smart-arse our way out tonight and it really hurt us. “
Munster continued and said the Storm must improve against the Roosters or their finals series will quickly be over.
“Full credit to the Broncos, though — they played really good footy,” Munster said.
“But if we compete like we did tonight it’s going to be the same thing next week.
“Myself and the spine need to have a good, hard look at themselves, especially myself. We can’t be dishing that up — it’s terrible.”
Storm coach Craig Bellamy agreed and slammed the performance of his side.
“At the end of the day, our first half was really poor, we done really well just to be 8-0 at halftime — it could have been 20-0 at halftime,” Bellamy said during the post-match press conference.
“I’m not quite sure how we could come into this game and play like that.
“The injuries didn’t help later on but at the end of the day we were poor, the Broncos were good. The result was probably what we deserved.
“I can’t remember the last time we attacked as poorly as that. Some of that was due to the Broncos’ good defence.
“We just looked like we were 17 players that got thrown together on the night and good luck.
“We’ve been scoring plenty of points the last four to six weeks and our attack’s been humming along okay. But tonight, it looked like we’d only just met each other in the dressing room before the game. That’s one thing we’ll need to look at during the week.”
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