Melbourne Storm speed demon Josh Addo-Carr burned the North Queensland Cowboys in last year's grand final and his opposing winger Kyle Feldt is determined to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Addo-Carr broke the 2017 Telstra Premiership grand final open with a dazzling length-of-the-field try and Feldt, who will mark the man known as 'The Fox' on Thursday night in Melbourne, said he would have to be contained.
"[Addo-Carr] is a good player, he's very fast and it's going to be a good challenge and we've had a few good contests throughout our young careers so it's really good to come up against a good quality winger," Feldt said.
"He's fast so you can't give him too much of an outside otherwise he's going to gash you, so try and stay square and just don't let him get on your outside."
Feldt was on fire against the Storm in the pre-season trial clash between the two great rivals with a hat-trick of his own, but stopping tries rather than scoring them has been the focus of Cowboys training this week.
After a poor defensive performance from the team against the Broncos last week, Feldt said coach Paul Green had been "animated" at training on Monday so that the lapses won't be repeated against the Storm.
"It's 'Greeny', he always has animations that no one can dream of. It's pretty good. He keeps us on our toes and keeps us accountable which is good," Feldt said.
"We've… really worked on the things that we didn't do well last week and we've got to step our game up this week."
Feldt is ready for the Storm to shoot out of the gates after their own disappointing performance against the Wests Tigers last week.
"They're always fired up, and I suppose going down to the Tigers they didn't play the way they would like to play, so no doubt it's going to be a really fiery first 20 to 40 minutes and we've just got to really go with them and match it, if not better it," he said.
The clash between last year's two grand finalists has the makings of a blockbuster.
Cowboys centre and former Storm player Justin O'Neill expects Melbourne to be putting it all on the line to go to two wins from thee starts in 2018.
"Like any team, off the back of a loss they're always going to be fired up the week after, especially a team like the Melbourne Storm, they're very professional," O'Neill said.
"Especially [after losing] a big game like Billy's 300th they're definitely going to be preparing for their best game this weekend so it's going to be a tough one."
