2005 Melbourne Storm season
The 2005 Melbourne Storm season was the 8th in the club's history. They competed in the NRL's 2005 Telstra Premiership, finishing the regular season 6th out of 15 teams and making the finals. The season began with two big wins over the Knights and Dragons, each by more than 30 points. The form line followed a similar path to the previous season though as the team struggled to string consecutive wins together and hovered around the lower part of the eight for much of the season before ultimately finishing sixth once again. Future star  Greg Inglis made his debut in Round 6. Storm finished the season with the second best defence in the competition and again went to Suncorp Stadium in Week One of the finals, producing the same result to defeat the Broncos. However for the third straight season the side was unable to progress past the semi final stage, losing to the Cowboys. At the end of the season, Storm legends Robbie Kearns and Matt Geyer were inducted as inaugural life members of the Club. Season Summary. Jerseys. For the 2005 season, Melbourne signed a new apparel contract with Reebok. The home  jersey remained largely unchanged from the 2001-02 design, but now with a simple navy blue T-shirt style collar. This meant the home jersey did not feature gold for the first time in team history. A new white clash jersey was designed, featuring a large gold thunderbolt with purple block shadowing, which was partially obscured by the jersey advertiser Adecco. The clash jersey was worn with different navy blue shorts featuring the thunderbolt design on the right. The clash jersey was worn on seven occasions during the regular season (rounds 5, 13, 14, 19, 21, 22, 26); with Melbourne  only winning on one occasion against Wests Tigers. Both finals games were also played with Melbourne wearing the clash jersey. Fixtures. Regular season. Source: 2005 squad. "List current as of 28 September 2021" Player movements. Losses Gains Representative honours. This table lists all players who have played a representative match in 2005. Statistics. This table contains playing statistics for all Melbourne Storm players to have played in the 2005 NRL season. Scorers. "Most points in a game: 16 points" "Most tries in a game: 3 " Winning games. "Highest score in a winning game: 50 points " "Lowest score in a winning  game: 20 points" "Greatest winning margin: 46 points " "Greatest number of games won consecutively: 3" Losing games. "Highest score in a losing game: 24 points" "Lowest score in a losing game: 10 points " "Greatest losing margin: 24 points" "Greatest number of games lost consecutively: 2 " Feeder Teams. Under a new affiliation agreement, Melbourne split their reserve players between two feeder clubs during the 2005 season. The agreement with Norths Devils continued for an eighth season, with players who were dual-registered in Queensland travelling to Brisbane each week to play with in the Queensland Cup. Melbourne also formed an affiliation  with foundation New South Wales Rugby League club North Sydney Bears for some players to play in the NSWRL Premier League. In a repeat of the 2004 season, the Devils finished second on the ladder, but were bundled out of the finals in straight sets. Coached by Gary Freeman, the Bears finished tenth and missed the finals, with Alex Chan, Ian Donnelly, Jamie Feeney and Tevita Metuisela attracting praise from Freeman for their efforts.