It took some special moments on Friday night for it to start dawning on Kenny Bromwich that he likely has only one more home game at AAMI Park.
While Bromwich, his brother Jesse, Dolphin-bound forward Felise Kaufusi and teammate Brandon Smith received their thanks for serving the club in a ceremony on the field after the Storm’s 18-14 defeat to the Roosters, the realisation the 30-year-old's time in Melbourne is ending really hit home when the grandstand erupted above the players’ race minutes later.
A handful of the 25,308-strong crowd, which was the highest for a Storm game at AAMI Park outside finals and Anzac Day, roared to life with a spirited haka for the trio in a touching exit for the last game of the regular season.
It’s a sign of the passionate support from countless Storm fans almost mourning the ilk of Bromwich as he heads to the Dolphins next year.
“We were just walking off and everyone was clapping us off and we had a few people do a haka for us,” the 214-gamer said.
“It was awesome to see and we just wanted to pay our respects back and do a haka back to them to show how we feel about this place and how we feel about the fans and the love and respect we have for this place.
“Hopefully we get to play one more game here and get the win. It will be sad when the day comes when I’m leaving and walking out the door, but there’s a lot of work to do before that.”
Bromwich will get to play at least one more AAMI Park home game during the playoffs no matter the result against Parramatta next week, though the Storm will be desperate to gather some momentum after a disappointing result against the Roosters.
Melbourne must win against the Eels in the opening game of Round 25 to secure a vital top four spot, or face doing something they’ve never done and make the grand final from outside the top four.
They will need to break somewhat of a recent hoodoo to achieve it, having lost four of their last five to the western Sydney side.
Bromwich said it was clear what the team had to address to be successful after letting the Roosters streak out to a 14-0 lead inside 20 minutes, ultimately failing to run the visitors down.
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“We’ll review the game and see what we can do better. We can’t afford to give as much ball away as we did the first 20 minutes, but I thought we kept ourselves in the fight and we’ve got a big game next week against Parramatta, who have beaten us the last couple of times,” he said.
The Storm will go into the clash without Tom Eisenhuth, who joined the casualty ward with a moderate syndesmosis injury after a tackle from Roosters’ forward Lindsay Collins which has attracted a four-game ban for the Maroons prop.