ANALYSIS

The Storm promoted granny day at Olympic Park yesterday but there was not a rolling pin tackle in sight.

"What's that shit?" was the reaction in the Melbourne dressing room to a story in a Sydney newspaper the Storm had created a new advantage in slowing the play-the-ball down by a tackler forcing the ball carrier to submit via a knee on his chest.

Convinced that Parramatta planted the story, the Storm treated the publicity as one more propaganda exercise in a campaign to undermine them. They proceeded to wear Canberra down, winning 30-14.

Far more important to the Storm were two statistics: half Cooper Cronk's 100th game and coach Craig Bellamy's 100th win.

The Storm have long celebrated milestones, always producing extra efforts to honour the anniversaries of special games, such as a player's 100th game or 50th win.

However, it took some time yesterday for the Storm to exercise mastery over the opposition, with nine players backing up from Wednesday night's gruelling State of Origin game.

The Storm were lazy early against a Canberra team that sniffed an ambush.

The Raiders scored first, and there was a lethargic atmosphere at the ground, despite it being the only football game on in Melbourne.

A crowd of 11,719 was testament to the fact Melburnians won't go out to watch the opening of an envelope.

Still, there were some VIP's in the corporate area, including Professor Glyn Davis, the Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University, the man who co-chaired the 2020 Summit.

"I grew up a St George supporter," Professor Davis said. "Today is the first opportunity I've had to watch the Storm."

Still, no one needed 20/20 vision to see the way the game would unfold. Canberra, lacking a number of players, were never going to be equal to the Storm, despite the debilitating effects of Origin III.

Some of the Storm's most vehement critics accuse them of arrogance, saying the team always believes it will find a way to win.

Yet it is hard to reconcile this with the attrition mind set of the players.

They exude a confidence, which says if they don't panic, they will prevail.

Nevertheless, there were signs yesterday the Storm had made a sea-change of attitude to the way they play rugby league by relying less on defence and opting to increase their offload rate.

Forwards Adam Blair and Antonio Kaufusi began offloading randomly, and fullback Billy Slater appeared willing to stand in tackles and keep the ball alive, more so than Storm supporters have seen in the past.

Coach Bellamy said he was aware the Storm were ranked last in the NRL for offloads but would not be panicked into changing his strategy.

Bellamy's approach to Origin football has drawn criticism from those who claim past NSW coach Phil Gould took the attitude, "Pick me the best players and I'll win you the game."

The critics of Bellamy argue his approach is, "Pick me the best defensive players and I'll ensure we don't lose."

Origin, say Bellamy's detractors, is about scoring points, not keeping the score down.

But Bellamy doesn't exclusively think defence.

He is an attacker and in the last 20 minutes of yesterday's match, a message must have gone out to five eighth Greg Inglis, who was basically doing nothing for 60 minutes.

Perhaps the message was: "Get your arse into gear."

That's what happened.

Inglis exploded to be involved in the final tries and keep the Storm in the hunt for a top-four position.

July 26 is grannies day but yesterday's promotion, involving women with blue wigs, allowed Bellamy to finally witness a team of Blues with something to cheer.