Game 678 – S26E21 Review

Newcastle Knights 26–18 Melbourne Storm

Jul 24, 2023

The season of one step forward, two steps back continues as Melbourne fall into the obvious trap game. Sigh.

Newcastle – 26 (Young 17', Best 33', Marzhew 36', Fitzgibbon 39', Croker 45' tries; Ponga 3/6 goals)

Melbourne – 18 (Meaney 3', Loiero 8', Olam 53' tries; Meaney 3/3 goals)

It’s not for the first time this season that I feel like going full Jonathan Morley, but that was quite shit from Melbourne.

Given I watch these games twice, when once was clearly enough for this one, this opening line from Blocker Roach is just…something:

The first ten minutes will tell a story about the Newcastle Knights defence.

There’s been a pervading narrative about this iteration of the Melbourne Storm — attitude and effort. Some matches Melbourne have looked worthy of their current top four position on the ladder, other weeks they look like the underlying numbers that have them outside the finals race.1

About those first ten minutes

Melbourne looked good. Harry Grant was moving the middle forwards around the park, the edge forwards were finding space. The first try, an almost 80 metre runaway effort from Nick Meaney came after Newcastle lost the ball down their left edge.

A high tackle penalty gave Melbourne attacking field position, and the crash play down the left channel from Trent Loiero to score his first try of the season was a nice bit of work.

…but then what happened

At 12–0 up, most iterations of the Melbourne Storm would go on with the match, either grinding the opposition out of the game, or blowing them off the park on the scoreboard. As Blocker put it in commentary:

The Storm are in some kind of mood here this evening

“Some kind” indeed.

Melbourne should have added to the score line in the next series, eventually forcing a goal-line drop-out. Getting the ball back from the restart saw the Storm huff and puff a bit in attack, but eventually turn the ball over and give away a penalty.

After that though it was danger signs with Newcastle finding a good seam down their left, targeting the combination of Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Jahrome Hughes and Reimis Smith in defence. That Newcastle were able to force an error from Will Warbrick mishandling a simple kick wasn’t great, and it the resulting set the home team would score on the right edge through Dominic Young.

It was good hands from Tyson Frizell, Tyson Gamble and Dane Gagai that led up to Young scoring, with Melbourne’s middle defenders unable to stop the offload of Frizell.

That Young scored his 19th try of the season wasn’t unexpected, but Newcastle’s ability to gain easy metres was a harbinger of things to come.

That the next ten minutes entered a similar grinding phase to last week wasn’t unexpected, but that Newcastle were able to exploit Melbourne in similar ways to the Roosters is concerning going forward.

Gerard Sutton’s narrative

Of all the NRL referee’s that feign competency, Gerald Sutton is high on the list of referees that are influenced by what I call the narrative of matches. There’s moments in matches where he audibly says to his assistants “go with it” and that’s definitely his overwhelming style. That is fine if your team is either in a dominant position in the game,2 but for everyone else it means that you’re in for a bad time. Sutton loves the type of penalty where it makes him feel like the smartest man in the stadium. His application of the ten metres is wildly inconsistent, especially when his refrain of “it’s okay he’s gone ten now” doesn’t afford the attacking team any advantage that a penalty or six again might bring. That frustrating only grows when he does award a penalty for the same infringement in defence.

From a missed strip call (Melbourne should have given away a penalty to challenge, but alas), to penalise Melbourne instead of Gamble for starting the melee that immediately preceded Bradman Best charging over the top of Smith and Meaney to score. Sutton changed the narrative of this game in favour of the home team. From there Melbourne were on the back foot both in defence and in the eyes of the referee.

Tariq Sims

‘nuff said.3

Penalty kill not so good

Just before Sims was marched, his shoulder charge went unpunished,4 but Sutton of course would award the cheap penalty on the next tackle to make up for it. Sims deserved his sin bin, but all we ask for is some semblance of consistency.5

With Sims off with five minutes to go before half time, Melbourne were always likely to concede a try, and disappointingly it happened immediately with Best and Greg Marzhew combining to get over against Smith and Warbrick. On the next set, Melbourne’s inability to wrap the ball up6 and stick in tackles was the cause of the Knights try to Lachlan Fitzgibbon. Newcastle were on top and good for their 18–12 lead, but it’s hard not to wonder what would have happened if Sutton had correctly awarded the penalty for a strip back in the 31st minute.

Coming out from the break, Melbourne were lucky not to concede from the first set of the half, eventually finding their feet with 12-men… nope. That’s not how it went at all. Newcastle were dominant and scored again just before Sims returned. Crossland’s grubber from dummy half badly catching out Meaney with Mat Croker putting down the ball just inside the dead-ball line.

Quandary

So Newcastle went from 4–12 down to 24–12 up and even if that margin looked close and with more than 30 minutes remaining, this Melbourne team looked lost.7 That Munster was able to force a repeat set and put Justin Olam over for a try was a good start at an attempted comeback,8 but that was as good as it got for the visitors.

Instead of focusing on working their way out of the hole they had dug for themselves, with the leaders needing to lift the team, Melbourne chose impatience. Again it wasn’t helped by Sutton’s bizarre whistle to award a penalty for an escort off a line-drop-out against Olam. That penalty, Newcastle’s sixth, ended any momentum that Melbourne possessed. Melbourne were able to win something against Sutton with a successful challenge when NAS was originally ruled to have lost the ball.

Melbourne had a chance when Warbrick kicked ahead down his wing to then tap the ball back from over the dead-ball line, only for Sutton to rule that the Knights weren’t playing at the ball in blocking it from getting back to the field of play, which feels very much like a poor interpretation of section 8 and 9 of the laws.9

Spurious challenges

The Knights challenge in the 63rd minute should be held up as an example of why the RLPA’s strike should extend to talking to referees.10

The denouement

With 17 minutes left and the difference just six points, Melbourne’s impatience got worse, and panic football was the order of the day. There was a nice sequence on the back of a couple of offloads from Welch and Munster, and Grant went close in a disjointed play. But it was the defensive attitude from the Knights that would stand in stark contrast to Melbourne’s madness either side of half time. Melbourne’s error count kept rising and it was Newcastle’s game to lose.

Newcastle were able to reverse roles and play dominant football to close the game out, taking an ill-gotten penalty shot at goal when Sutton pulled a penalty out of his rectum. The home team should have looked for an easy field goal chance, but instead the dodgy penalty handed them a 26–18 lead and with five minutes to go it was all over as a contest.

Of course, the game couldn’t end without further fuckery when Adam Elliott should have copped a sin bin for his high shot on Hughes, and Melbourne’s leadership turned into a rabble when Munster and Hughes wanted to take the shot at goal only to be overruled by Welch. Who knows whether that was the call from the sideline or not.11

In the end Newcastle outworked Melbourne. Sutton’s narrative didn’t help, but at some point the players need to own the reasons why they can’t hold a lead for too often in 2023.

Coach quotes

Did Bellyache just succinctly recap this entire post in the press conference:

I’m not sure where our intensity was in the last half hour of the first half. We lack energy and enthusiasm. Sometimes you wander how important it is to them.
One thing we pride ourselves on is not getting complacent or never getting complacent. I am not quite sure if that was it, but at the end of the day they out-enthused us and out-worked us, to be quite honest, and that was the difference.
It's been an up-and-down year and we have given up some leads. We have got to ask ourselves how ruthless do we want to be, do we want to be a good football team when we've got all the ball and it is easy going, or do we want to be a good team in any situation, and we haven't been that this year.
I hate inconsistency, but that’s what we’ve been this year. We’ve had some really good performances and some really ordinary performances.

Mid season training camps

Can only assume that Melbourne getting away from Swan Street because of the FIFA Women’s World Cup was in the club’s best interests, but a training camp on the NSW Central Coast might not have been the answer. Footballers are creatures of habit and routine at the best of times, a trip to a new environment rather than the usual Sunshine Coast camp seemed like something of a misstep. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Was it worth it?

When you got a feeling, a bit of an inkling, that this is gonna be one of those days…

At least make it profitable. Gamble responsibly.12

In other more important news, Rugby League Eye Test’s Sockwatch is back for 2023. Remember though that #RealFootballersWearSocksUp

2.5/10

Storm Machine Player of the Year

Looking back at this game, a question occurred to me: did the player beat their direct opponent? Far too many Melbourne players saw their direct opponent have a better game than they did. Whether that was the outside backs or even Gamble and Crossland having better games than Munster and Grant.

Giving a point to Tui Kamikamica is the ultimate cop out for me this week – he was on the bench during the period that Sims was in the bin.

Round 21 points:

1 – Tom Eisenhuth
1 – Tui Kamikamica
1 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona

Leaderboard

23 – Harry Grant

16 – Cameron Munster

13 – Nick Meaney

12 – Jahrome Hughes

9 – Christian Welch

8 – Trent Loiero

7 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona

6 – Will Warbrick, Josh King, Xavier Coates

5 – Tui Kamikamica

4 – Eliesa Katoa

2 – Alec MacDonald, Jonah Pezet

1 – Reimis Smith, Justin Olam, Tom Eisenhuth

Next up

Parramatta Eels – Marvel Stadium, Friday 28 July, 8:00pm

With Reimis Smith suffering another seemingly serious injury and Tariq Sims last seen hitchhiking back to Melbourne, there will be a couple of changes. Thankfully Harry Grant was only fined for his awkward effort on Phoenix Crossland, meaning he’ll be fine to play against the 2022 grand final losers.

Looking even further ahead, with just six games left in the season, Melbourne realistically need to win at least half of them to even be a chance of making the finals. With games against Canberra and Brisbane on the horizon, things could go pear-shaped quickly should Parramatta and Penrith do the business against the Storm in the next fortnight.

Full preview later in the week.