Rock solid one week and shaky the next.
It was the pattern that plagued Melbourne a season ago and on Saturday night it again bubbled to the surface.
Manly waltzed in three tries in nine minutes just before halftime, thanks largely to some Daly Cherry-Evans brilliance, in what proved to be a match-winning blitz.
The Storm had a second half surge of their own but left too much to do with too little time, falling 22-24 to suffer their first defeat of the season.
It was a contrast in performance from the Round 1 win over the Dragons in which they restricted their opponents to just four points on that back of a 400-plus-tackle count.
But that nine-minute first-half lapse at the weekend showed that for the moment bad habits have not yet died hard.
"It was basically what I thought after the game," Cooper Cronk said.
"Round 1 was a really good performance, I thought we took some giant steps in the right direction and then for that period of time it was a bit of a reflection of last year, quite inconsistent.
"It was a polar opposite from the first round. There was a lot of disappointed gentlemen in that room after the game and I dare say Craig [Bellamy] will make that the focus during our meeting today."
'Inconsistent' was the buzz word bandied around at AAMI Park at almost every press conference and post game interview last season.
It is also a term that the club's star halfback is desperate to never hear again.
"Let's hope so, I don't want to be doing this press conference next week and answering the same questions," Cronk said.
"We went through that last year. Our inconsistency is basically what crippled our season and we don't want a repeat of that.
"We need to finalise exactly what happened, put it to bed and start playing the way Melbourne Storm likes playing football for the rest of the year."
After back-to-back road trips to start the season, the men in purple will make their return to AAMI Park on Saturday night against the winless Cronulla.
The Sharks will need to overcome a dismal record to get their season underway, having won just one of their past nine games against the Storm.
