Melbourne’s Brandon Smith freely admits it took him quite a while to realise he needed to get his life in order off the field in order to excel on it.

The Storm forward has crossed for three tries in his past four appearances coming off the bench for the runaway competition leaders.

The 23-year-old hasn’t received less than an eight-out-of-ten in internal reviews of his performances in the back end of the NRL season.

But approaching his 40th senior game, the blockbuster against South Sydney in Gosford on Sunday, Smith admits he needed time to fully grasp what was required of him at the level.

“I’m pretty proud of my efforts and I think it’s due to the fact that I’ve been doing everything right off the field,” Smith said.

“(Coach) Craig (Bellamy) has said publicly that it took me 18 months to work out my off-field business but I finally think I’ve sorted that out.

“I’m a lot more professional than I used to be, my body is holding up better and it’s showing on the field.

“I don’t drink too much, to be quite fair I used to love a beer more than most.

“I wasn’t really going out and doing stupid things, it was just that a couple of days after (a drinking session) niggles hurt a bit more.

“I didn’t really do anything … I’d just be in bed being hungover.

“But I’m a lot more active now. My girlfriend has moved down, so she’s kept me in line, and everything is starting to fall into place.”

The Kiwi international also gives a lot of credit to fallen teammate Christian Welch, who faces a long road to recovery after rupturing an anterior cruciate ligament in last week’s win over the Broncos.

“Me and Welchy have always had that close connection as we’ve been benchies for the last three years together,” Smith said.

“It’s a really a sad thing because he’s absolutely one of the best blokes you ever met … he’s one of those guys you think ‘It’s unfair for something like this to happen to a bloke like that’.

“The game is unforgiving sometimes.”