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AAP
Sport
Melissa Woods

Knee injury for Asofa-Solomona adds to Storm woes

Nelson Asofa-Solomona bundling over for a try before suffering his knee injury for Melbourne. (James Ross/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

Shell-shocked Melbourne's woes have continued with giant prop Nelson Asofa-Solomona joining their bulging casualty ward with a knee injury.

The Storm crashed to an unexpected 26-12 defeat against Canterbury on Saturday night at AAMI Park, with injury to their best forward Asofa-Solomona adding to the misery.

With Melbourne down 26-0 in the second half, Asofa-Solomona did his best to wrest momentum his team's way.

He barrelled across for a second-half try, but it couldn't spark a fightback from a lacklustre home side who missed 49 tackles.

Clutching at his knee Asofa-Solomona soon headed to the change-rooms and while he tried to return to play, was ruled out for the remainder of the match.

Storm coach Craig Bellamy said the early diagnosis was an MCL injury, meaning he will likely miss at least two weeks.

"I think it's a medial so that will probably be a couple of weeks, I imagine," Bellamy said post-match.

Heading into round one Melbourne had a third of their 30-man squad out injured, with star backs Cameron Munster and Xavier Coates also sidelined from the opening win over Parramatta.

They still have the likes of Ryan Papenhuyzen, Justin Olam, George Jennings, Marion Seve, Tui Kamikamika and Tariq Sims missing.

Bellamy wasn't sure if any would be back to take on the Titans on the Gold Coast next Saturday afternoon.

"I don't know for sure - I just worried about what we had this week so we'll see," Bellamy said.

"At the end of the day that's not going to make any difference unless we want to show a bit of pride in our footy and in what we're about as a footy team and a bit of pride at home here."

He said the Bulldogs outplayed his team across the park and the likes of superstar Munster wouldn't have changed the result given their "lack of effort".

"We'd like to have all of our players available but we'd like to have the players who go on the field do their best," Bellamy said.

"We were a long way away from our best.

"If we're lacking some skills, some finesse, some speed, some size we'll put up with that but we just lacked effort."

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