Melbourne Storm head coach Craig Bellamy has confirmed he will likely rest players over the final weeks of the 2024 NRL season.
The experienced mentor, who has been in this position plenty of times previously during his tenure at the club, said finishing in the top four - which the Storm are now assured of - is a great advantage, and that finishing in the top two and playing at home would be a bigger one.
He also suggested there is a chance the club will spread out the resting of players over the next three weeks, instead of having all players rest in one go.
"It's a big advantage to finish in the top four, and an extra advantage to finish in the top two because you get games at home. I think we have nearly wrapped that up," Bellamy said during his post-match press conference after Thursday evening's critical win over the Penrith Panthers in the race for the minor premiership, which the Storm now hold a four-point competition lead-in.
"Penrith are only two wins behind us and we have three games to play. We have some players we would probably like to rest, but part of that will be in their opinions on when and whether we go for one game or spread it out over the next three games."
Bellamy admitted that resting players did come with risk and that it may be up to individual players to determine which games they want to play, or if instead, they may have a week off training.
"I'm not quite sure what we are going to do, but we will certainly look at doing that. At the same time, you can rest them and you lose a bit of momentum as well. We have done both over the years and there are some pros and cons to it. We need to see what we think as coaches, then what the players think and what their preparations are," Bellamy added.
"Sometimes it might be give them the week off training and they come in for the captain's run because they still want to play. A guy like Josh King, you have to tie him up to stop him from playing footy. If he doesn't train with us, someone will see him running up the hills around the back, so you're better off letting those guys play because it'll play with them mentally if they don't."
The Storm clash with the Dolphins, North Queensland Cowboys and Brisbane Broncos over the final three weeks of the season.