Parramatta coach Daniel Anderson has revealed how he badgered Nathan Hindmarsh into re-modelling his game, pulling back on the blue-collar approach and regaining the potency in attack thought gone forever.
After the popular Hindmarsh celebrated his 250th game for the club with a typically lion-hearted performance in the 18-16 win over Melbourne on Monday night, Anderson told how he had won a battle of wills with his star back-rower to fine-tune his game.
While Hindmarsh still gets through a mountain of work in defence, he is now using the ball more than in the previous three seasons.
"Nath's performances this year have definitely changed from halfway through the year," Anderson said.
"It's taken a fair amount of coercion and threats to get him playing (like that)."
"He's fending blokes off and getting through gaps and offloading."
"He's shown a huge amount of quality in his attack."
"We know he can defend but his attack has been very, very good the last three months."
"I know what he can do. He just needs to have the confidence to do it."
Hindmarsh admitted he had gone into his shell in attack over the last few years, robbing the Eels of a dangerous attacking weapon.
"I was well aware of that, especially the last two or three seasons," he said.
"It just clicked. I've been playing like that ever since."
"I probably hadn't offloaded in three seasons and I'm doing more now that I ever have."
Hindmarsh was keen to play down the significance of his 250th game, laughing wryly when he led his team-mates down onto the field only for them to remain in the tunnel so he could enjoy the moment by himself.
"If it was my 300th or my second game I wouldn't have cared as long as we won," he said.
"We're not sitting in the best position on the ladder and we needed a win and it was a tough win."
"(I'm) very satisfied."
Not so satisfied was Storm coach Craig Bellamy.
His side threatened to pull off a miracle win with two late tries but were never really in the contest.
The three-time grand finalists were down in troops and had four players backing up from Origin, but Bellamy said that was no excuse.
"Our effort was pretty good but we didn't do what we planned to do," he said.
"It seemed to take us 50, 60 minutes to get into stride."
"We lacked some intensity and some speed to start the game."
"We haven't got any excuses. The score probably flattered us."
"They were too good for us on the night."