Melbourne Storm ace Reimis Smith has been impressed with the early impression made by Storm new boy Xavier Coates and is backing him to be a big success at the club.
The Storm are priced at 15/4 to win the NRL grand final and are hoping that Coates can play a huge role in the push for glory after arriving from the Brisbane Broncos.
Impressive start
The 21-year-old winger scored his second try in two games as the Storm beat South Sydney Rabbitohs in round two and Smith believes there is even more to come from him.
Smith and Coates worked well together and the future looks to be a bright one.
Related Melbourne Storm news
Bellamy admits Storm got lucky
Bellamy future decision on hold
Johns injury setback for Storm
"He's a big kid with a big future ahead of him," Smith told AAP. "He switched to the right side (after injury to George Jennings) in round two and fitted straight into how we defend and attack so I thought he was unreal.
"I take my hat off to him, he's done really well and if he keeps it up he's going to be one of the best wingers in the comp.
"He brings that presence, there's a lot of weight and height between us so hopefully we can keep building that combination."
Amazing fightback
The Storm had to call on all their reserves to steady themselves against Souths when they let a 14-0 lead slip before winning via a golden point.
They also had to do it while having two players separately sin-binned and Smith says that just shows the character they have.
"To win under the circumstances of having 12 men twice in the game it was big for us," the 24-year-old added. "Everyone knows the Storm train hard and I think we have the hardest pre-season of all teams but when it comes to games we know we've done the hard work.
"When we get in those tough situations we can fall back on our training. That's tested our pre-season training and it's come up trumps.”
