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As they await their opponents in the NRL preliminary final, Storm players credit captain Harry Grant with helping build a brotherhood at the club.

Kava drinking, coffee drinking or plain old beer drinking, Storm skipper Harry Grant is chief organiser off the field as well as on.

Ask any of the Melbourne players what's different about this year's  team as they push towards their first NRL premiership in four years and they talk of their tight bond.

And they credit hooker Grant, in his first year of captaincy, for his work to build a "brotherhood" at the minor premiers.

"He's been outstanding and I would attribute a lot of the success we've had this year to some of the things he's brought in," prop Josh King said of Grant.

"As a leader, he's really worked hard to bring us together as a group and really make us connect and go deeper than just playing footy on the weekend and to learn a bit more about ourselves.

"That's really transferring to our footy because as a team we're really enjoying playing together, and there's a bit of a brotherhood here at the moment, it's a second family.

"Harry has been the driver of a lot of that - I know on his days off he spends half the day on the phone just trying to organise things that will hopefully benefit the team.

"And that's professional sport; how do you get players up each week and make them feel good and get the best out of the team, and that's what Harry is doing.

"He goes out on the weekend and gets his job done, but it's important to what makes the team play well."

Second-rower Eliesa Katoa hasn't seen his mum and siblings, who live on a tiny Tongan island, since Christmas and says Grant and his Storm teammates help stave off the homesickness.

Close to Fijian-born prop Tui Kamikamica and Kiwi winger Will Warbrick, Katoa says Grant joins the trio to drink kava.

"He doesn't mind it and sometimes after a game he comes and has a few bowls of kava," Katoa said of Grant, who scored his first NRL hat-trick in their qualifying win over Cronulla.

"We're pretty tight as a group here - ever since I moved here everyone has helped me, and I count on these guys as family.

"On our days off we go for a coffee or a feed, do stuff outside of footy, and that's what brings us tight together and we love a good time."

Halfback Jahrome Hughes was already at Melbourne when Grant made his debut in 2018 and said he'd seen his maturity rocket since taking over the captaincy from Christian Welch.

"He's doing such a great job, I feel like he's so mature now, and he's been huge for us to keep the team close," Hughes told AAP.

"To see what he's been doing off the field, and on the field as well, it's pretty special."