The 2010 Melbourne Storm season was the 13th in the club's history and competed in the NRL's 2010 Telstra Premiership. After winning the first four games of the season, Storm’s season would hit a significant challenge after Round 6 when the NRL penalised the Club for salary cap breaches with the team unable to play for points for the remainder of the season. These revelations also saw them stripped of the 2007 and 2009 Premierships and the 2006, 2007 and 2008 minor premiership titles.

Craig Bellamy and the players maintained an incredible focus to win 14 games for the year, the same number they achieved the previous season. That would have been enough to see them finish in fifth spot on the ladder. This season remains the only time Storm have missed the finals in the Bellamy era.

Greg Inglis scored 11 tries to finish as the team’s leading try scorer in his final year at Storm. Other notable players to leave included Brett White, Ryan Hoffman, Brett Finch, Jeff Lima and Aiden Tolman. However there were several highlights during the season with youngsters Jesse Bromwich, Matthew Duffie, Luke Kelly, Rory Kostjasyn, Justin O’Neill and Gareth Widdop all bursting on the scene.

Storm also played their first ever game at AAMI Park in Round 9. Ryan Hinchcliffe was named Storm’s player of the year while Ron Gauci was instilled as Storm CEO midway through the difficult season and set about rebuilding the Club over the next several seasons. Craig Bellamy continues to be highly regarded for the way he led the Club throughout 2010 and had this to say when summing up the season.

“When we found out it was obviously devastating and the year has been a drawn-out and difficult one ever since. But we stayed competitive, we unearthed some good kids and we conducted ourselves with dignity. For that I’m proud of the boys. It’s sad to see guys go especially given the massive contribution they have had to this club.” - Craig Bellamy

The Storm began 2010 by travelling to England to play in the 2010 World Club Challenge. This involved a warm up game against Harlequins RL followed by the World Club Challenge a week later against Leeds Rhinos. The Storm won both games.

The regular season commenced with the Storm defeating Cronulla away in what was the first of three consecutive away games to begin the season. The Storm played their first home game at Etihad Stadium against St George Illawarra in front of a crowd of 25,480 which is a record home crowd, excluding finals games. They won the game which made them the only undefeated side in the League after Round 4.

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Wikipedia