The Melbourne Storm juggernaut has rolled on and so has Chris Lewis's surprise NRL career.
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Lewis, 29 - an Ashford Roosters junior who made his NRL debut last season after overcoming a series of serious injuries - strolled through a yawning hole to score in the Storm's 26-16 defeat of Canberra on the Sunshine Coast on Thursday night.
Melbourne's 18th straight win leaves them one win behind the 1975 Roosters' record sequence of victories.
Rugby league pundits have posed the obvious question: Can the Storm be stopped from winning back-to-back premierships?
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"It's nice to be part of a winning team," Lewis said. "But we're focused on - it sounds a bit cliched - but you take it one game at a time.
"You don't think too much about the record that you're trying to set."
Lewis, a 190cm and 105kg second-rower, came off the bench in the round 22 clash against the Raiders and played 51 minutes.
He has made 18 appearances for the Storm this year, with him used off the bench in all bar one of those matches.
In a 34-10 defeat of the Raiders in round 11, he started at five-eighth and played a full match.
Lewis has played 23 matches all up for Melbourne and tasted defeat only twice: narrow back-to-back losses to Parramatta and Penrith at the start of this season.
The introduction of new rules this year, he said, had "opened the game up a little bit - and we've got some good running hookers in Brandon Smith and Harry Grant.
"But we've also got good halves leading the team around and a good forward pack and good outside backs.
"So it's a combination of all those things coming together. And we've got a lot of good blokes as well - everyone's happy to play for each other each week."
Having the opportunity to contribute to such a great side was "fun" and a "privilege", said the humble former high-school history teacher.
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