Reimis Smith is at peace with falling down the pecking order at Melbourne as he prepares for a comeback against the Sydney Roosters in the Storm's do-or-die semi-final.
Smith excelled at centre in his first season with the Storm in 2021 and after an injury-hampered second campaign broke back into favouritism this year.
But a minor adductor injury forced the 26-year-old from the field in the round-21 loss to Newcastle and he struggled to cement a first-grade spot after returning to full fitness a fortnight later.
Smith has played only two of a possible six games since recovering, one of which came in the last round before the finals as coach Craig Bellamy rested a string of key players.
But an ankle injury to State of Origin winger Xavier Coates has thrust Smith back into the NRL side for the Storm's most important game of the year.
On Friday, Smith will be tasked with helping Melbourne atone for a disastrous 26-0 loss to Brisbane in the first week of the finals.
"We sort of just spoke about it straight away and just said, let's get on with the next job, which is the Roosters," Smith told AAP.
"We've got a big game here on Friday night so there's no point dwelling on last week. It's not going to do anything for us right now."
Nor will Smith be dwelling on his struggles to earn consistent game time in the past two months.
With the season on the line, Bellamy has called the similarly out-of-favour Justin Olam in for centre Young Tonumaipea as well as pushing Smith onto the left wing in place of Coates.
It comes after Tonumaipea and Marion Seve usurped Olam and Tonumaipea as Bellamy's preferred centre pairing after the surprising loss to the Knights.
"A couple of the boys that came in played some good footy and were keeping me out," Smith said.
"It's good as in it's healthy competition. That's what you want in a good team, you want that competition between each other. It's been like that for the last six to eight weeks.
"You've got to have those two or three guys that are ready to go as soon as injury comes or someone's not playing their best footy. That's the beauty of us here, a lot of guys are fighting for the spots.
"The season's been good, I'm not disappointed in it at all.
"I'm looking forward to getting an opportunity.
"I'm ready, I've been ready for a couple of weeks now."
