Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy will begin resting his star players in a bid to freshen them up ahead of the NRL finals.

Bellamy will again implement a rotation system, used with great success ahead of their grand final triumph last year, in the latter stage of the season to give his representative players some additional recovery time.

Second rower Michael Crocker missed Sunday's 30-14 round 17 win over Canberra after he failed a cognitive test following a head knock in the Origin decider.

But Bellamy said the Queensland veteran also badly needed a rest, and more of the nine Origin representatives that the team supplied would follow.

"There's still the influence of Origin, it doesn't just finish and then all of a sudden everything goes back to normal," Bellamy said.

"We've got to make sure we rest these guys up who've played Origin and make sure that they are recovered well physically and mentally as well.

"Mentally some guys take a little bit longer to get over Origin.

"I'm sure guys like Cameron (Smith) and Dallas (Johnson) they'll get over Origin straight away but guys who've played their first Origin series or sometimes their second, it takes a little while to get back to the hum-drum of club footy so we're really aware of that so we'll put some procedures in place to help the players get over that."

Brilliant five-eighth Greg Inglis took his ongoing knee problem into Sunday's match and came out with two tries, but also suffered "abdominal bruising".

He earned the praise of Bellamy who said Inglis showed a new maturity in the manner he backed up from Origin.

Melbourne's physio Mary Toomey said the tendonitis in his knee was manageable while the abdominal injury wasn't serious.

With nine rounds of regular competition remaining the defending champions are two points behind the three competition front-runners, Manly, the Roosters and the Sharks.

Bellamy described that effort as "tremendous", given the representative drain on the club.

"For us to get through this Origin period with nine or 10 players not playing three games and to be two points behind the leaders is a really good effort," he said.

"To have them missing for those three games and then to have them back up twice as well, it's not easy and I'm really proud of the way they've done it.

"They've put us in a great position.

"Obviously at this time over the past two years we've been in an even better position but we've never been through this sort of thing where we've had so many players involved.

"Now we have to knuckle down and be smart about what we do for the next four to six weeks and hopefully have a good lead into the end of season games."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP