SO, they're human after all.

The thing about Melbourne's loss to Manly on Monday night was not so much that it was, well, a loss. It was more the blunders and gaffes that punctuated the 80 minutes.

Cameron Smith knocking on twice at dummy half? Puh-leez. Brett Finch kicking out on the full in the second minute? Say it ain't so. Ryan Hoffman having the number "three" in his errors column? Rubbish!

"Culture" is professional sport's great buzzword right now and clubs use it as an explanation for success they way they used to use "strength", "depth", "guts" and "determination".

The Melbourne Storm have great culture but on Monday, Manly had a lot more of those other, old school qualities that used to win football games.

Jamie Lyon and Glenn Stewart were hungrier getting to that bomb in the third minute than Greg Inglis was. The Eagles had more guts than Melbourne when two Cooper Cronk's double saw the margin shaved to just two.

And even Storm coach Craig Bellamy admitted his rivals were "too strong".

Now, depth? That's an interesting one...

It's the Storm's culture that allows them to bring in the likes of Todd Lowrie, Ryan Tandy, Bryan Norrie and Luke MacDougall and inspire them to play above the level they have displayed elswhere.

It's a culture that Bellamy was protecting when he promised changes for Sunday night's ANZAC Day game against the Warriors.

"There's been a couple of little signs over the past weeks that perhaps we're getting a little ahead of ourselves,'' he, ahem, stormed.

"There's been a couple of (bad) things that have been consistent that I wasn't seeing in the first month of the year.

"There's a couple of guys heading that list. The guys heading that list, they're going to struggle to hold onto their spots this week."

He suggested he would bring back Brett White, bring in John Kite. Maybe Sika Manu and Chase Stanley are smokies.

But Greg Inglis (ankle) and Dane Neilsen (thumb) will more likely be gone. And it's likely a clutch of rookies will be needed over the weeks and months ahead.

As potent a concept as "culture" is, there are also things called injuries, bad luck, inexperience and the salary cap. The Storm seem to have man-managers good enough to minimise the impact of those things on a consistent basis.

But if you start losing and you start getting injuries and even your over-performing back-up talent hits the wall  ... your culture won't save you anymore than it did the Sumerians.