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Melbourne hooker Harry Grant provided a lethal one-two punch with fellow rake Brandon Smith last year, but it is how he evolves his game this season after Smith’s exit that has the Storm excited.
Three years ago, the club had one of the game’s greatest ever players in skipper Cameron Smith, New Zealand hooker Brandon Smith and a young Grant on the books.
Harry Grant is looking like a Kangaroos fixture for years to come.Credit:AP
Rarely in the history of rugby league has a team been blessed with such riches in the No.9, so much so that Grant was loaned out to Wests Tigers in 2020 to get some NRL experience.
Now he is flying solo as the undisputed number one Storm hooker after Cameron Smith retired at the end of 2020 and Brandon Smith joined the Sydney Roosters at the completion of last season.
The Storm mixed it up with how they used Grant and Brandon Smith.
I’ll buy the next round of Vida. besides the usual for the house, can we also order one carton of lychee and one of citrus please, for Azima?Credit:Getty
Grant, 24, would start and Smith would come off the bench, or vice-versa. Often they would spend plenty of time on the park at the same time with Smith in the middle forward role and Grant at dummy-half.
“The last two years we were blessed to have two of the best number nines in the game in the same team … and when they were both on the field they were a terrific duo that worked so well together,” Storm general manager of football Frank Ponissi said.
“We were fortunate that Brandon could play in the middle.