{"id":43658,"date":"2021-03-11T11:17:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T12:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=43658"},"modified":"2021-03-11T19:57:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T19:57:37","slug":"cheese-rattles-race-for-storms-no-9-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=43658","title":{"rendered":"Cheese rattles race for Storm's No.9 jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harry Grant would have beaten Brandon Smith to the Melbourne Storm's chief hooker spot if he hadn't got injured, but his rival thrived in his absence.<\/p>\n

So says coach Craig Bellamy after the Storm's season-opening 26-18 victory over the South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Grant is expected to miss Melbourne's first three games of the season after suffering a knee injury in the Storm's trial match against the Newcastle Knights.<\/p>\n

And Smith fired in his place as Melbourne overpowered Souths at Melbourne Olympic Park<\/a>, finishing with a Storm-high 35 tackles and making a series of damaging runs.<\/p>\n

\"Munster<\/p>\n

"(Harry) probably would have started there, I'd imagine. Harry played in that trial, he started there, he got hurt late, so that probably would have been our way," Bellamy said on Nine's post-match coverage.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

"Then losing Dale (Finucane) and Harry on top we're probably a little bit skinny on our middles at the moment.<\/p>\n

"Brandon does such a great job there as well so that's probably where he would have been, but I thought he did a great job for us (at hooker) tonight.<\/p>\n

"I thought he was up there in our top three or four players and played nearly 70 minutes, so he did a really good job for us tonight."<\/p>\n

\"Storm<\/p>\n

Superstar Melbourne five-eighth Cameron Munster also had high praise for Smith during Nine's post-match coverage.<\/p>\n

"When you think he's got nothing left to give he finds a way," Munster said.<\/p>\n

"He was outstanding for us tonight – probably man of the match in my eyes.<\/p>\n

"He got us forward, got out of dummy-half and … he's just a livewire."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harry Grant would have beaten Brandon Smith to the Melbourne Storm's chief hooker spot if he hadn't got injured, but his rival thrived in his […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43658"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43658"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43660,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43658\/revisions\/43660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}