S27E10 Preview – Jumping the Shark
What is that ominous music?
Cronulla finished sixth at the end of the 2023 season and promptly departed the finals in week one at the hands of the Roosters. Their reward in 2024 has been an opening two months to the season that has seen them face just one team that finished higher than them on the ladder: the Warriors in round 1. As it stands the only team that Cronulla have defeated currently in the NRL top eight is the Bulldogs.
Coming to AAMI Park this week, the Sharks are in first on the NRL ladder with a third of the season in the books, Melbourne are on level points in second spot on the ladder, which means grab your chainsaws its SHARKNADO time.
But first, there’s something odd about rugby league fans and I include myself wholeheartedly in that assertion. My latest examples is that last week I consciously watched for no valid reason the 2008 NRL Grand Final. Now honestly, if you’re a Storm fan why would you ever revisit that game? But that’s what I found myself doing. To wit, this week I found myself drawn to this match from the 45 previous meetings between Melbourne and Cronulla.
S21E22 – Melbourne Storm vs Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks
Ahh 2018. The Storm celebrated their 20th anniversary during their 21st NRL season. As reigning premiers, life was pretty good for the Storm. Cooper Cronk went to The Bad Place to fit under the salary sombrero, but in his place protégé halfback Brodie Croft had led Melbourne to a win in the World Club Challenge in March. Craig Bellamy had signed a new deal to stay on as coach until the end of the 2021 season. The club had signed up 25,000 members for the first time.
A finally fit Billy Slater had decided to quit representative football to put his energies into playing for Melbourne retire at the end of the season, his retirement announcement coming just days before this match against the team he had made his NRL debut back in 2003.
By round 22, Brodie Croft had been displaced by Jahrome Hughes at halfback, and it seemed like favourite son Ryan Hoffman, who had himself announced that the 2018 season would be his last, was also falling out of favour. Melbourne were sitting in second position on the ladder behind South Sydney who had defeated the Storm 30–20 the previous Friday night, while the visitors were a couple of wins back behind Melbourne in sixth having lost to Manly in #goldengallop.
It was a cloudy Sunday afternoon in August at AAMI Park during Women in League round with Melbourne running out in this fetching design:
Cronulla should have opened the scoring in as early as the second minute, a Chad Townsend bomb was caught by Josh Dugan in front of Josh Addo-Carr, but his pass to Luke Lewis was spilled by the Sharks lock forward with the try line within touching distance.
Handling errors was the story of the opening minutes with neither team respecting the ball, but the better field position was with the visitors and they capitalised on the Storm errors and penalties to take a 6–0 lead with a try from hooker Jayden Brailey.
Melbourne looked off — there were missed tackles, clunky attacking options and poor ball control. The visitors were more switched on, especially in defence, even if they were conceding a number of penalties.
It would take a spark from Suliasi Vunivalu for Melbourne to find a gear, the Fijian winger crossing over in the right corner after WILL CHAMBERS PASSED THE BALL. I saw it with my own eyes. It happened.
Cameron Smith couldn’t add the extras, so Cronulla maintained their lead into the second quarter of the match. In commentary Phil Gould:
Who is this team in the purple jerseys and what have they done with the Melbourne Storm? I’ve never seen some of this stuff today.
Just on the half-hour mark, a grubber kick fielded by Josh Addo-Carr in his own in goal was taken 65m down the left wing, but in an adventurous play a couple of tackles later, a Slater kick eluded Vunivalu on the bounce into touch. The sequence brought the crowd to life, as did another chance when Curtis Scott knocked on a pass meant for Addo-Carr, but it would be the visitors with the next try to silence the Melbourne fans.
It was a left edge raid from the Sharks with Sosaia Feki getting outside of Vunivalu to then throw a miracle ball1 back inside for Valentine Holmes to bring the ball around to score next to the posts. Not done with scoring before half time, Townsend would add a field goal to extend the Sharks lead to 13–4.
Coming back from the break, Melbourne needed to fire up and on the back of an error from Aaron Woods, had some field position to attack the Sharks line. It would be a magic grubber from Munster in behind the line for Slater to pounce and score career try number 188.
Still down by three points it felt like Melbourne had finally worked themselves into the contest, but it just felt like the Storm were playing a brand of rugby league that might work some of the time, but on this day it just wouldn’t.
For 20 minutes of the second half it was a game of would’ve, should’ve, could’ve. Bounces didn’t go to hand, passes weren’t sharp — Scott was put into touch in goal trying to get the ball across the line; then Joe Stimson was held up over the line when he looked certain to score.
After holding out Melbourne’s best efforts,2 Cronulla turned defence into attack when an errant pass from Munster bounced into the hands of Jesse Ramien, with the centre dashing away to be pulled down 10m from the line. Josh Dugan powering through some passive defence to score on the next play. For all of Melbourne’s huffing and puffing, it took two plays for the Storm to be further behind with just ten minutes to play.
It would take a sequence of unbelievable passing for Melbourne to crack the Sharks line, as Melbourne’s panicky ad lib football finally set up a second try for Vunivalu in the corner, with the last pass coming from Will Chambers again…
With seven minutes remaining, still down by three points after Smith missed the conversion, Melbourne’s chances to win the game came down to whether they could score a try. The first set ended with a high kick adeptly caught by Valentine Holmes, and Melbourne’s second set looked okay in parts, but again Munster’s kick was easily gathered by Holmes. With just three minutes left, the Storm players looked tired and defeated. Holmes again defusing a bomb with aplomb as Ryan Hoffman limped off with a hamstring injury, leaving Melbourne out of interchanges and down to 12-men on the field.
With 90 seconds to play, Melbourne had one last chance to steal the win, but the Sharks would hold on and take their second straight win at AAMI Park.
TL;dr this recall, my old game recap said enough:
Melbourne – 14 (Vunivalu 23', 73', Slater 45' tries; C Smith 1/3 goals)
Cronulla – 17 (Brailey 8', Holmes 36', Dugan 68' tries; Holmes 2/3 goals; Townsend 39' field goal)
Will freely admit that after this game I wasn’t impressed with Jahrome Hughes at halfback.3 Am very happy to have been eventually proven very wrong since then, especially when Brodie Croft was strategically released to the Brisbane Broncos at the end of the 2019 season; leading them to their first ever wooden spoon in 2020.
Melbourne would recover from this loss to win their next two matches, but failed against Penrith in the final round of the season to finish second on points difference behind the Roosters in the closest finish to the season in the premiership’s history. The Storm would win their two finals to progress to the 2018 Grand Final, but let’s not remember that match right now…
Stat attack
Melbourne have played four previous matches on 11 May, twice against the Roosters (losing 6–34 at the SFS in 2002, and winning 28–12 at Gosford in 2009), beating Parramatta 64–10 in 2019’s Magic Round, as well as knocking over the Broncos 24–16 at AAMI Park last year.
Melbourne have won 29 of the previous 45 matches between the Storm and Sharks, with the Sharks winning six times in Victoria, but only two of those victories coming at AAMI Park (2017 and 2018).
This week AAMI Park celebrated the 14th anniversary of the first event at the stadium — the Trans-Tasman Test played on 7 May 2010. Melbourne have played 161 NRL matches at the venue, winning 122 times and playing one draw. The club’s current winning streak of 14 is the longest winning run at the venue.
Melbourne’s 54–10 win over Cronulla last year is the highest score and greatest winning margin in matches between these two teams.
A number of players have played for both Melbourne and Cronulla, with Nicho Hynes and Daniel Atkinson lining up for the Sharks this week. Atkinson played one match for the Storm in 2021, while Hynes made 36 appearances for the Storm from 2019 through 2021, famously spending the entire 2020 Grand Final on the bench.
Team line-up
Sualauvi Fa’alogo
Will Warbrick
Reimis Smith
Nick Meaney
Grant Anderson
Cameron Munster
Tyran Wishart
Christian Welch
Harry Grant ©
Josh King
Shawn Blore
Eliesa Katoa
Trent Loiero
Bronson Garlick
Joe Chan
Nelson Asofa-Solomona
Alec MacDonald
Kane Bradley
Jack Howarth
Dean Ieremia
Chris Lewis
Tui Kamikamica
Referee: Grant Atkins (Bunker: Adam Gee)
Preview
Melbourne Storm vs Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks
— AAMI Park, 7:35pm Saturday 11 May 2024
No Paps, no Rome. Next man up? Bueller?
Injuries have struck Melbourne and it would feel like long odds for the 17 named on Tuesday to be the final squad that runs out for the Storm on Saturday night. Sua Fa’alogo has been named for his home debut, but must be in some doubt after suffering an injury last week. Xavier Coates will miss a second-straight game, so unlike last week, it appears that it is time for the Grant Anderson Experience. In the absence of Jahrome Hughes and Jonah Pezet, Tyran Wishart will be in the six jersey with Cameron Munster in the seven. That’s going to look WEIRD. I think it’s the first time Munster will have worn the seven jersey for Melbourne, I’m surprised they have one that fits on his rig to be honest.
Correction: Munster will be in his usual six jersey.
Bronson Garlick has been named on the bench for what would be his first NRL action for the year, but with Jack Howarth, Dean Ieremia and Tui Kamikamica all in the reserves list, there could be further changes.
The Sharks have one change with Toby Rudolf out with a knee injury… wait is that their only injury? 🙄
Saw this article from Jason Oliver over at NRL.com last week after the preview post went out for the Titans match. Love seeing in-depth analysis like this, so please give it a click and have a read:
With their ruthless attention to detail and coaching expertise, the Storm will always be among the best in the competition defensively. Now that the attack is catching up and scoring in a variety of ways, they’re dominant on both sides of the ball and placing themselves firmly in the premiership conversation.
As mentioned at the top, Cronulla have had the rails run so far in 2024, with a soft draw and hardly any injuries. Melbourne haven’t had either, but come into this match with the same 7-1 record. With the changes to Melbourne’s line-up this week its hard to feel any confidence though, and I expect that the Sharks will enter this one with confidence. It might come down to whether or not Daniel Atkinson and Nicho Hynes can get enough space in the middle of the field to put their outside backs to good use. There could be a lot of traffic going left to right for the Sharks, probing what could be a weakness in the Storm defensive set up. It would be nice to see Melbourne’s middle forwards get over the top of what looks like a pretty mediocre Cronulla pack, especially if they can maintain fast play-the-balls and the occasional effective offload.
To be honest, I’ll be travelling to AAMI Park on Saturday expecting to see Melbourne lose. Everything is pointing towards a Sharks win, but if Melbourne are close at the 70th minute anything could happen.
Finally, in a week where the Bunker has been in sharp focus, of course we got Adam Gee looking over the work of Grant Atkins. I’ve seen some people put forward the suggestion that the Bunker needs to have the former players back assisting referees in the Bunker, and to be honest that’s probably the way to improve the current situation.4
What else is going on?
The Storm Jersey Flegg Cup team will be back on AAMI Park to face Parramatta at 4:45pm (which is when the AAMI Park gates are scheduled to open…), while the North Sydney Bears will also play Parramatta in the NSW Cup on Sunday at 3pm.
In Queensland Cup, the Falcons have the bye this weekend, while the Tigers travel to Bishop Park to face Norths on Sunday afternoon, with that match available to watch on Kayo and Nine Now for those without Qplus subscriptions.
It might only be round 5 of the Super Netball, but the Sunshine Coast Lightning need a win against bottom of the ladder Giants. That match starts just before the Storm game on Saturday night with first pass at 7:00pm.
Aka a forward pass.
As well as #Kleined refusing to use the sin bin against Cronulla a couple of times that would have been justified.
Mainly because he was somewhat isolated on the right edge at the time, not really linking with Munster on the left.
As well as reversing the idiocy of getting rid of the assistant referee on field. Watching the 2018 match this week reminded me again how superior that was in tempering the ref chat discourse.