Melbourne fullback Billy Slater showed there would be no letdown following his axing from the Queensland State of Origin team with a brilliant performance in the Storm's 33-6 NRL win over the Bulldogs at Sydney Showground.

Slater scored two tries and denied the Bulldogs one with a try-saving chase and tackle as the Storm cemented their spot in the top eight and kept the Bulldogs on the outside looking in for a few weeks yet.

The Storm ran away with the contest late in the match, scoring 19 points in the final 11 minutes to put the match beyond doubt, but only after the Bulldogs had blown several second half opportunities to get back into the match with poor execution.

"I thought our first half hour of the second half was quite 'tear your hair out' type of stuff," Storm coach Craig Bellamy said.

"We defended so well on our line. I was thinking we just can't keep doing it, but we did."

After the Storm had taken a 14-6 lead into the break courtesy of two tries to centre Greg Inglis, the Bulldogs peppered the visitors' line in the second period, but couldn't get over the stripe.

Centre Jamaal Lolesi should have gone over in the 55th minute only for a Matt Utai pass to go sailing over the sideline, while hooker Adam Brideson dropped the ball as he reached out to score after the Storm had been reduced to 12 men when David Kidwell was been sin-binned for repeated infringements in the play the ball area.

Then Luke Patten looked like he might score the 'Dogs second try following Cameron Phelps' first half four-pointer, only for Slater to chase down the runaway fullback after he had taken an intercept in his own half.

"We just shot ourselves in the foot and just made every mistake known to man tonight," Bulldogs coach Steve Folkes said.

"It's fairly out of character, we've been pretty good the last month.

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