Want to know why the Melbourne Storm produce such hard-working players?

Just ask Melbourne’s Player Welfare and Education officer Peter Robinson – a former Storm player himself.

A toiling forward, Robinson says the hard work he did in the real world prepared him for first grade rugby league.

“I was always a hard worker because of those lessons I learned from being an apprentice,” Robinson told the Storm website.

“Working in the mines for 12 hours, sometimes 16 hours a day.”

“They are the things that help you learn a lot about yourself.”

Now all Storm recruits, young or old, are made to complete their Melbourne Storm Work program.

“There are guys coming straight out of school, they’ve never done a day’s work so when they come to us and they are doing two weeks of labour intensive work, the hardest work we can find them,” Robinson said.

“It is for them to have a real-life experience of what the working life is.

“That helps our discussion during the year when we talk to the players about how football can be over before you know it.

“When that time comes and you don’t do anything, you don’t plan for life during your playing days, well that crowbar you were swinging at the start of pre-season, that might be your only option.”

Big Sam Kasiano is a man mountain with unbelievable talent. If he can finish Storm pre-season, who knows how good he could be.