STORM coach Craig Bellamy spent his 50th birthday yesterday deciding his final bench place for tomorrow's grand final between an injury-plagued forward who was the club's first scholarship holder or a teenage university student compared to former Melbourne captain Robbie Kearns.

Scott Anderson, a 22-year-old Gold Coast product first signed by the Storm in 2001, is the player tipped to get the nod but Bellamy won't confirm his decision until today.

Also in contention is 19-year-old prop Aiden Tolman, whom many predict is set for a bright and lengthy career in the NRL after playing seven matches for Melbourne in his debut season.

Anderson has played just two more overall but he would be far more experienced if not for a series of injuries that threatened to derail his career before it had started. Even this season, in which he has featured in seven matches for the Storm, Anderson has been restricted by injury and only able to complete every aspect of training for the past two months.

Before that he had made just two NRL appearances after suffering lumbar stress fractures, osteitis pubis, a hernia and ankle problems.

Should he be chosen to play in Melbourne's third consecutive grand final, it would be considered a deserving reward for a player identified at 15 years of age to become the club's inaugural scholarship holder.

Anderson played for Queensland under-17s in 2003 and under-19s in 2005 - the same season he represented the Junior Kangaroos - and was promoted to the Storm's full-time training squad the following year but has spent most of his time since on the sideline trying to overcome injuries.

"I think he's probably an example of a player who was quite big when he was young and whose body struggled to support his size so he got busted a bit," Melbourne high-performance manager Mary Toomey said.

Tolman was recruited from Kempsey on the mid-North Coast in 2006, and that season he went on to star for NSW at the national schools championships before touring England with the Australian Schoolboys team.

After spending last year with the Storm's full-time squad preparing himself for the rigours of playing in the NRL and starting university in Melbourne, Tolman got his chance to play in the top grade this season.

"He's going to be something special," said former Melbourne recruitment manager Peter O'Sullivan, who left to join Sydney Roosters this season. "People may not have noticed him much in the NRL games he has played so far but he is going to be a 10- or 12-year first grader. He's a Robbie Kearns-type player, and the other players love playing with him."

Whether or not Tolman is ready to be thrown into a premiership decider is thought to be Bellamy's biggest concern.

Both he and Anderson played in last week's 28-0 defeat of Cronulla but the return of Jeremy Smith from suspension means one of them will miss out.

"It's a tough decision," Melbourne football manager Frank Ponissi said. "Scott was also good against the Warriors [when he filled in for Antonio Kaufusi in the opening round of the finals] but Aiden probably gives us more flexibility in the back row."

O'Sullivan, who will be cheering for the Storm but believes the suspension of Melbourne captain Cam Smith gives Manly a good shot at avenging the result of last season's grand final, said Anderson wouldn't let Bellamy down.

"What I like about him is that he's tough," O'Sullivan said. "He'd have played a lot more NRL matches except for the injuries."

After a hectic schedule of promotional commitments since their arrival in Sydney on Wednesday, the Storm players spent most of yesterday relaxing at their Coogee base, while some watched the new Will Ferrell movie Step Brothers.

The players and coaching staff last night went out for dinner together but there were no plans to do anything special for Bellamy's birthday, although he did receive a surprise visit yesterday from Noiseworks frontman Jon Stevens, who will perform at the grand final.

Storm officials said Bellamy was a big fan of Bruce Springsteen, Status Quo and The Angels, the latter he recently went to see with other members of the club's coaching staff at a suburban Melbourne pub.