THE Melbourne Storm has not written off the next two games that it would play without its state-of-origin stars, despite the depleted team being thoroughly outplayed by St George Illawarra in the National Rugby League at the weekend.

The Storm was without nine players who were in origin camp for Wednesday's first clash, plus the injured Adam Blair (eye), when beaten 36-12 on Saturday night by the Dragons. Storm faces the daunting task of away games against the table-topping Gold Coast (round 13) and Parramatta (round 16) before the second and third origin games, respectively.

But Michael Maguire, who, with fellow assistant coach Stephen Kearney, has taken the reins while Craig Bellamy has been in the NSW camp, said he had faith in the same group that could not do the job against the Dragons. Maguire said the result was not only because of the inexperience of most of that night's team, which had several newcomers and a host of players with fewer than 10 games of NRL experience, but the seasoned players, such as Jeff Lima, Sam Tagataese and Sika Manu, had felt the pinch after not having a lot of game time recently.

"It was good experience for a lot of young guys. For the four guys who came into the team, it was a big learning curve for them. I think, at the end of the day, they can only be better footballers for it," Maguire said.

"It's always been proven here with the Storm when guys are given their opportunities, they've got to take them. (Saturday) night was no different. We expected a good performance from them but, unfortunately, we just didn't achieve that on the night.

"There's a number of guys in that team who haven't played a lot of game time and I think the (lack of) possession that we had in the first half probably put a fair drain on a lot of the players … we asked a lot from those guys to play a lot of game time and they will only be the better for that."

Maguire said there were plenty of areas of improvement in cohesion, combinations and a lack of discipline that led the team to give away penalties late in the tackle count.

The Storm is also waiting on whether the match review committee today charges centre Will Chambers after he was placed on report for a late and high hit on Dragons' Jamie Soward.

Maguire said he hoped Chambers would not be charged because he did not believe the hit was late, Chambers did not lift his elbow and because Soward was slipping at the time.

Storm football operations manager Frank Ponissi yesterday dismissed a newspaper report the club was well advanced in its negotiations to retain captain Cameron Smith and half-back Cooper Cronk after next season. While Ponissi agreed the club would like to seal deals with the pair this year, he refuted the claim Storm could pay more than $2 million to keep them.

"I have absolutely no idea where they pluck a figure like that for one simple reason, we haven't even spoken financials. It astounds me because we've had one preliminary discussion with both the managers and briefly with the players about their intentions of staying and that was before we even went to the World Club Challenge … I can absolute(ly) confirm any discussions … are very, very preliminary."

■ Benji Marshall made a triumphant return from injury yesterday, scoring a double to help lead the Wests Tigers to a 38-26 NRL victory over Newcastle in a thriller. The Tigers trailed 22-16 only two minutes after half-time but then Marshall scored four tries in 15 minutes for a matchwinning 38-22 lead.

■ The New Zealand Warriors' embarrassing away record hit a new low yesterday as a red-hot Penrith demolished them 46-22.