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Melbourne's Ryan Papenhuyzen says the club will use off-field distraction and their finals capitulation as motivation to return in 2022 stronger than before.
Ryan Papenhuyzen hopes the pain of having to rewatch Melbourne's preliminary-final loss to Penrith will steel the Storm squad to avoiding another finals capitulation in 2022.
The electric fullback was part of a Storm side that cantered through the regular season, winning 19 games straight to claim the minor premiership.
But when the competition was whittled down to four, the Storm went off piste in the preliminary final and crumbled in a loss to the Panthers.
"I tried to detach myself from it," Papenhuyzen said.
"I knew I had to watch the game again and see where it went wrong.
"On my way back from Sydney, I watched the prelim and then got back into footy mode.
"I think it's important to address it, we don't want to avoid it. You learn a lot from those sorts of games.
"It was the club's idea to watch it and come back as a leadership group and as a spine and see what we can learn from that."
After their record-equalling winning streak - the Storm tied with the 1975 Easts side - Papenhuyzen says Melbourne took the wrong options when it came to the crunch against the Panthers.
"There were a lot of take-outs from it. We played our worst game of footy at the end of the year," he said.
"I don't know if it's a false reality, we were winning games pretty convincingly and we needed to realise when it gets to finals it's a different game and a different competition.
"When we get in those situations which we weren't in too often throughout the year, we need to turn our attention to being in a close game."
Often held up as the best-run club with head coach Craig Bellamy supported by the league smarts of football manager Frank Ponissi and recruiter Paul Bunn, the Storm have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons this off-season.
Cameron Munster and Brandon Smith were embroiled in a white powder controversy on the eve of the Dally M awards, before prop Tui Kamikamica was stood down following an allegation of assaulting a woman outside a Brisbane pub.
And Smith added to scrutiny when he claimed in a podcast interview the Storm enjoyed boozy bonding sessions.
Shortly after that podcast appearance, the Storm confirmed Smith would be leaving the club at the end of the 2022 season when his contract expires.
On Friday, the Sydney Roosters confirmed they had signed the New Zealand international hooker on a three-year deal from 2023 onwards.
Papenhuyzen launched a staunch defence of the Storm's culture and said the off-field distractions acted as motivation for them to be better.
"What gets reported is a lot of the negatives (but) there are a lot of things we're proud of," he said.
"Some of the comments that were made are not nice to hear, especially when you've signed on for a while.
"It's like in footy when someone criticises you, you want to be better.
"People questioning us has probably come at the right time, bouncing back from adversity is what builds a strong club."