Star Storm fullback Billy Slater has been given the week off training as Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy tries to freshen up his side ahead of next month's NRL finals.

The Storm suffered a 14-point loss to the competition front-runners St George Illawarra last Friday night and are currently fourth.

This Friday night they host North Queensland, who are coming off an impressive win over Gold Coast.

Melbourne's defeat was compounded by a badly broken leg to Test forward Sika Manu, who had a rod inserted on Saturday.

Despite the result Bellamy said he was pleased with the effort by his players against the benchmark Dragons.

"I think Friday night was a pretty good indication of where we're at," he said.

"We need to do some work on some things in the skill area and work on building a bit more pressure than we did in the second half.

"We've got a good attitude, we just need to make sure we keep the players fresh and looking forward to the game ahead."

For that reason Bellamy decided to rest Queensland Origin representative Slater and also hard-working young prop Aiden Tolman.

Bellamy said he would look at giving other players who had a heavy workload a break in the remaining four rounds before the finals.

"The way Billy plays the game and the way he trains, it's pretty draining for him because he goes flat out in both areas," Bellamy said.

"So we thought it was a good time to give him a break.

"Young Tolman has played in every game so the position he plays and the age he is, not too many guys are capable of doing that.

"He's still going strongly but at the same time we thought it was a good opportunity to give him a few days break and he'll come back with fresh legs."

The workload of all the Storm forwards will lift with the bullocking Manu out for up to eight months.

"It's certainly a bad break and it's a bad break for us having him out," Bellamy said.

"He has been so strong for us, especially in the last month he's been in great form.

"He has been playing long periods this year too so he's a huge loss and he's going to be a hard guy to replace."

Cronulla coach Ricky Stuart said he didn't want his injured five-eighth Trent Barrett to be available for the four-nations tournament at season's end in England and France.

With at least three Storm players certain to be in the Test side, Bellamy said the workload on elite players was "too much" and warned it would shorten their career.

"Their workload's huge, it's way too much," Bellamy said.

"Just getting through the NRL season is a big enough job in itself without all the other stuff.

"I think some of my guys need a rest and it would be best for them and best for us if they didn't go.

"We're not going to tell a player they can't play for Australia.

"But some of those guys, the workload they've got at the moment, that will cut their careers down by a couple of years if they keep it up."

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