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‘Shattering and bloody embarrassing’

It was a king-hit no-one in the Melbourne Storm saw coming.

Melbourne went into their NRL elimination final with everything going their way.

Captain Cameron Smith had overcome a serious ankle injury to play, they were at home, and they were in winning form while their opponents Canterbury had barely won a game in the last two months.

Even the sun was shining at AAMI Park.

But 18 minutes into the match Melbourne were already down 18-0; by half-time it was 24-0 and effectively game and season over.

Storm coach Craig Bellamy was blunt in his assessment of his team’s performance, eventually losing 28-4.

“It was shattering and it’s bloody embarrassing to be honest,” Bellamy said.

Smith said that their last training was one of their best of the season and they had no inkling of how their season would end.

“With all due respect to the Bulldogs we were almost handing tries on a platter for them early on and credit to them, they were good enough to turn those opportunities into points,” Smith said.

“It’s hard to explain because we didn’t see it coming.”

The Storm only managed to complete 29 of 44 sets and the error toll meant they were unable to build any pressure on the Bulldogs.

They allowed their burly opposition to dominate through the middle, with holes then opening up out wide.

Twice Melbourne handed the visitors tries through intercepts.

“We were waiting for things to happen, we were rabbits in the headlights,” Bellamy said.

“We beat ourselves in the first 15 minutes, we gave ourselves no chance after that.”

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