Brad Fittler Dismisses Melbourne’s Premiership Hopes, While Billy Slater Urges Caution

It might be only round seven, but Brad Fittler has dismissed the Melbourne Storm, stating that Craig Bellamy’s squad has no chance of clinching the NRL premiership this season.

In response, Storm icon Billy Slater cautioned Fittler, telling him to be “careful” with his assertions.

Melbourne fell to the Raiders with a 26-22 defeat in Canberra on Friday night, marking their fifth consecutive loss.

During Nine’s coverage of the Panthers-Dolphins clash on Friday, Slater noted that the last instance of the Storm enduring five straight losses was back in 2012—a year which culminated in them winning the premiership.

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However, after suffering defeats against the Broncos, Cowboys, Panthers, Warriors, and Raiders, Fittler expressed that Melbourne’s chances of winning the premiership are virtually finished, especially after a performance against Canberra he labelled as “flimsy”.

“Careful, careful,” Slater remarked to Fittler with a grin.

Fittler asserted, “They can’t win it from here.”

He elaborated, “The defensive effort on the edges has been lacking, and I’m not sure how many outside backs will be returning.

“I understand they’re missing a lot of forwards.

“[Xavier] Coates is a significant absentee, I must say.

“They lack that punch in the middle—the absence of Nelson [Asofa-Solomona] is felt, and without any prior notice or adequate time to find a replacement, losing Tui [Kamikamica] compounds their issues.

“They’re really struggling without those big men in the forward pack, and the decision-making on the edges has been questionable tonight.

“I’ve never seen Melbourne appear as fragile as they do now.”

Except for the 2010 season—when Melbourne finished last after being caught cheating the salary cap—the Storm have consistently made the finals during the Bellamy era, which began in 2003.

After their latest defeat, they find themselves languishing in 14th on the ladder, with the potential to fall as low as 17th once the round concludes.

Slater mentioned, “The Melbourne Storm are not executing well at the moment; they’re a bit out of sync, with individuals missing assignments at critical moments.”

“They had a chance to clinch victory at the end, but the Raiders put in a strong performance, driven by their desperation for a win at home following several losses.”

“This is not a good position for the Storm—five losses in a row is troubling.”

Recalling the last time they experienced five defeats in a row in 2012, Slater said, “We all know what transpired that season, so I wouldn’t be too quick to make a judgement.”

At Bellamy’s post-match press conference, he was asked to summarise the performance against Canberra.

“Honestly, I’m getting a bit tired of summarising them,” Bellamy replied.

“We executed a lot of good plays out there, but there were also things that cost us heavily.

“Inconsistent is probably the best word to summarise our performance. We can’t seem to find any consistency either in attack or defence.

“Last week we wanted to focus on improving our defence close to the line. They scored tries in the first two sets when they got close to the line, but aside from that, we defended well for the next 30 minutes. So, as I said, our inconsistency is very frustrating at the moment.”

Melbourne, who were grand finalists in the past two years, kicked off the season with wins against Parramatta and St George Illawarra but have since lost their way.

Their upcoming test is a home fixture against South Sydney next Saturday night.

Bellamy concluded, “We’re feeling a bit lost right now.

“Everyone is scratching their heads, so we’ll all come together, and hopefully by our next meeting, someone will have a few ideas, and we can move forward from there.”