Slade Griffin says he is looking forward to a tough battle against former teammates at AAMI Park on Friday night.
The Melbourne Storm are two wins from five so far this season after back-to-back losses, and will be looking to return to form against the Knights.
Griffin is certain that he will be targeted by his former teammates, with Storm’s head coach Craig Bellamy sure to fire them up after a disappointing result against the Tigers last week.
“It will be a tough battle and I’m sure I will get a bit of extra special attention from them,” Griffin stated.
“He (Bellamy) is a really good motivator. He will have the boys fired up and they probably weren’t too happy with their performance, even though the Tigers are playing really good footy. I know they really want to win and there is only one way they will do it… running hard and tackling hard.”
The 27-year-old Knight admitted that in order to take a win against Melbourne, the Knights will need to run a tight ship defensively like they did against the Broncos, and learn from the lessons of their matches against the Roosters and Dragons.
“I think we showed in the first game against Manly that they're a really good attacking side but we contained them. We went away from it for three weeks there but it’s something that if we want to compete week in week out that is what we are going to have to do to give Mitchell (Pearce) and Kalyn (Ponga) the chance of winning the game for us.”
Griffin is pleased with the role senior players have had with junior players’ development so far this season, believing that having a good mix of younger and older players has given the squad a firm balance of energy and know-how.
“We have got a good balance of old and young. We have got the young boys that are really keen and rip in at training and the old boys that are managing us through the games."
