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Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy has an unorthodox view on how to stop in-form Parramatta winger Semi Radradra.

The flying Fijian goes into the Telstra Premiership Qualifying Final on Saturday fresh off seven tries in the last two games to take his tally to 20 for the season. So, how can he be stopped?

"A double-barrel shotgun might be handy," Bellamy joked. 

"Obviously he's probably the most dangerous player in the competition at the moment. You need to be really good on your tackle technique on him and be aware of where he likes to run. 

"We're aware of that and can hopefully control him reasonably well, because you're not going to control him fully for the whole 80 minutes."

‌Ahead of the qualifying final at AAMI Park, Bellamy said the 2017 side's form leading into the playoffs is the best he's seen for a long time. The decision to give his State of Origin players some more time to recover has also helped.

"Probably going in – I can't remember us going into a finals series on the form we've probably had," he said. 

"I can't remember winning six or seven games straight leading into the finals. 

"Especially after Origin, there's usually a little period that we recover. This year it's been quite smooth. It's because we've given our Origin plays a lot more rest than we have in the past, so hopefully they'll add to the advantage of that and we'll see the results of that in the next how many weeks."

The Storm are most people's tip to win the 2017 Telstra Premiership but it means nothing to the coach.

"Whoever said that haven't played the game," he said. 

"They don't know how hard it is to play for 26 weeks, make the top eight or top four, get to a prelim final and make it to a grand final. Anything could happen. 

"You could go out tomorrow night and they'll be some circumstances we haven't planned for, or Parramatta haven't planned for. That’s the nature of sport and the nature of our game." 

The biggest thing for Bellamy is to make sure his players' strengths fit into the game plan and be used in the collective effort. He's also conscious that there are a few players playing their first NRL finals game on the weekend.

"We've got about six or seven guys in our team who haven't played semi-finals before, so just making sure they understand what semi-finals are about, and making sure they go out there and play to their strengths," he said.

 

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