League: Tough, tight game says Harris

Tohu Harris, left, Cooper Cronk, Ryan Hinchcliffe and Ryan Hoffman of the Storm. Photo / Getty Images

Forget any 25-point winning margin for the Melbourne Storm in tomorrow night's NRL clash at Napier's McLean Park.

That was the response from the Storm's Hawke's Bay-raised Kiwis rugby league star Tohu Harris to a prediction from his former Tamatea premier coach Adrian Rowlands shortly after the Storm arrived in the Bay last night to complete their build-up to the round-20 match against the St George Illawarra Dragons.

"Hopefully I'll get the two tries Adrian predicted for me earlier this week but this game is going to be a tight one," Harris said.

The 23-year-old believed Rowlands was taking too much notice of the Dragons' six consecutive losses, including last weekend's 24-8 loss to defending champions South Sydney.

"It wasn't so long ago the Dragons defence was top of the league. We've been through the same thing as them, too," Harris said referring to the Storm's four-loss streak that ended with last weekend's 52-10 walloping of the Penrith Panthers.

"They've got international players who can turn results like this around at any moment," Harris said before listing the Dragons/Kiwis winger Jason Nightingale, former Kiwis captain Benji Marshall and Kangaroos test player Josh Dugan.

The Hastings Boys' High School old boy pointed out the Storm have prepared as they do every week in the season. "We always prepare as if we are going to have to beat the best. In tough games like we're expecting we know the best team will be the one which turns up with the best attitude."

Harris has played all previous 19 games for the Storm, mostly in the second row, and is rapt to be starting at centre on home turf.

Centre is where he played most of his games for Tamatea before heading to Melbourne at the end of 2009 to begin his first two-year contract with the Storm.

While he played a couple of Hawke's Bay age-group rugby matches on McLean Park Harris said he didn't remember too much about the venue so he couldn't pass on too much knowledge to his teammates that could give the Storm an edge in the game.

"From what I hear the ground has changed a bit since those days. But we've all been pretty excited about bringing this game to the Bay," Harris said.

The 2010 Ngati Kahungunu Junior Sportsman of the Year has yet to be hounded by relations for freebie tickets for tomorrow night.

"All of the family are sorted as they purchased tickets as soon as they went on sale. A few of the other Kiwi boys in the side might have to source some for relations ... Hopefully the park will be packed."

Storm coach Craig Bellamy stressed the importance of backing up the powerful display against the Panthers. "We've got to make sure we back that effort up this week, next week and the week after," he said.

"The two games before [last Friday night] we'd started really poorly."

Bellamy also eased any concerns surrounding the knee of Queensland scrumhalf Cooper Cronk and pointed out the State of Origin trio of Cronk, captain Cameron Smith and Will Chambers had been given the start of the week off training.

"If it was a close game we probably wouldn't have taken him off [Cronk against Penrith last Friday night] but the game was gone when we took him off," Bellamy said.

"He hadn't played for four or five weeks ... Then he played three games in 10 days. We just thought it was safe to get him off. Certainly this week he hasn't done any training but that's what we wanted with him, Smithy and Will.

"They've had some time off and hopefully that will freshen them up for the rest of the season."