A not so magical night away from AAMI Park with Melbourne unable to match a much better team on the Saturday night at Magic Round… wait we’ve seen that before.1
Melbourne – 12 (Smith 35’, Garlick 75’ tries; Meaney 2/2 goals)
South Sydney – 28 (Johnston 46’, 51’, Walker 5’, Host 18’, Tass 66’ tries; Mitchell 4/5 goals)
If the 2022 Magic Round loss to Penrith was the start of Melbourne’s fall from the elite teams,2 this 2023 loss to Souths may well be the signifier of Melbourne’s drift into mediocrity.
There was a lot of huffing and puffing from a very clunky Storm attack, especially when moving the ball right. Melbourne had enough possession especially in the first half, but were blunted by Souths defence and an inability to sustain real pressure. The things that worked a few weeks ago in the first meeting – like Harry Grant running up the middle – were strangely missing.
I say missing, because Grant’s stat line is a stark difference:
Round 5: 15 runs for 107 metres
Round 10: 5 runs for 20 metres
As well as keeping Grant quiet, Souths were able to corral and control Cameron Munster’s impact on the game, something Melbourne were unable to do with Cody Walker and Latrell Mitchell.
Walker’s impact in the first half was the impetus for Souths to get on top early and beat Melbourne. His passing game almost set up Alex Johnston to score, but from the next play Mitchell’s kick from dummy half found Walker to score untouched. I’d like to think Nick Meaney would have been better positioned at fullback, with his presence at marker not really required on the previous play.
Walker would turn provider for the second Souths try, his short ball to Jacob Host setting the forward up to steamroll Jahrome Hughes. Again, the replay isn’t kind to the right edge defenders, with Eliesa Katoa caught out on the inside of Hughes, failing to read the numbers coming at him on that flank. Defence is about communication and trust, with that edge looking very hesitant and confused at times.
At 12–0 down, Melbourne needed to be next to score and there were moments that Melbourne looked likely to score, but the attack just wasn’t clicking in the face of strong scramble defence. Eventually Melbourne found a try under the posts through a Souths mistake. Munster’s high kick caused a drama for Walker and Reimis Smith pounced on the error to score his first try since round 1 2022. Even that play was clunky with Meaney hesitant from dummy half passing to Munster.
With the half time score seeing Melbourne 12–6 down and nominally in the contest, early in the second half whatever attack Melbourne put to Souths was well defended. It wouldn’t take long for Souths to capitalise on a Storm error though. Melbourne’s fragile right edge was no match for Souths potent left flank. Mitchell’s grubber to Johnston was too good, although Warbrick should be disappointed to have been caught out. Just a few minutes later after yet another Melbourne turnover, Johnston would score his second with Souths this time putting it through the hands. Melbourne failed to number up in defence again, with the middle defenders letting down the right edge on this occasion.3
Melbourne needed a spark, but it just wasn’t there at 22–6 down. Silly errors and poor discipline was Melbourne’s lot,4 and when combined with not a lot going on with the ball, the game petered out as a contest.
Souths would score again through Isaiah Tass, who exposed some more poor defence from Melbourne’s right flank.5
Melbourne finally broke through late with Bronson Garlick scoring a nice try from dummy half for the first of his NRL career.6 Garlick had taken over from Grant at hooker for the final eight minutes, with Bellyache definitely looking ahead to next week.
Bellyache really wasn’t happy:
[We’re] a bit inconsistent, like we have been all year.
It looked like we didn’t know each other out there. The communication must have been right off.
We don’t seem to learn from where we’re going wrong. We ran into a really good side tonight. They were too good for us tonight.
In the first half we completed well and had plenty of the footy…then in the second half we had four errors in a row coming out of our own half. We can’t do that. We paid the price for that.
Was it worth it?
As I mentioned in the preview, personally I was skipping Magic Round this year. I’m happy for the people who went, and this moment was very nice from Nick Meaney:
But as someone who loves attending live sport to actually watch sport, the concept of Magic Round just doesn’t work. I feel that I would be less aggrieved as a Storm fan if the club played 12 home games in Victoria each season,7 so a change I would immediately make is to make Magic Round an extra neutral round8 in the season so that clubs still had 12 home games.9 Of course that would also require moving #wrongpriorities out of the season, but no one is mature enough to have that conversation.
As a game, this one probably wasn’t as bad as the damp squib last year, but with Melbourne’s clunky play in the spotlight, this won’t be remembered fondly.
3/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Thought Nick Meaney was Melbourne’s best player and Trent Loiero tried hard. Loiero has a nice combination going with Munster, but I do wonder if Loiero is being used properly playing so many minutes this season.
Was tempted to give Bronson Garlick a point, but his stats were mostly boosted by his work in junk time.
Round 9 points:
2 – Nick Meaney
1 – Trent Loiero
Leaderboard
13 – Harry Grant
12 – Cameron Munster
11 – Nick Meaney
5 – Christian Welch, Trent Loiero
4 – Josh King
3 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona
2 – Xavier Coates, Eliesa Katoa, Alec MacDonald Jonah Pezet, Will Warbrick
1 – Jahrome Hughes, Reimis Smith, Justin Olam
Next up
Brisbane Broncos – AAMI Park, Thursday 11 May, 7:50pm
Short turnaround this week for the visit of the top of the table Broncos.
Melbourne might have a very good record against their “big brother,” but as we saw against Souths that can be misleading.10 I do wonder whether Bellamy should tinker a little bit this week with the squad, but he might instead go for the option of giving the starting 13 the chance to improve from their performance against the Bunnies.
Full preview likely on match day because #SackThursdayNightFootball.
Having watched the Fox League coverage live (#mute Alexander please), I’ve resorted to watching the Nine coverage on replay. I’m a true glutton for punishment.
If it wasn’t, the loss against the Cowboys the following week definitely signaled the start of a decline, that lead to a month long losing streak a few weeks later.
The try might have been on Warbrick’s wing, but the issues are further infield.
How the Bunker didn’t step in to penalise Latrell Mitchell for lashing out at Harry Grant is baffling. Mediocre referee Adam Gee of course would give Souths a penalty a couple of tackles later. Gee isn’t the worst referee, but he’s very much mid-tier.
Again Warbrick is out of position, but Melbourne had just Grant, Hughes, Smith and Warbrick defending from the post to the sideline.
That the stats show this was Melbourne’s sole line break for the game shows how clunky the attack was.
Especially as Melbourne’s season tickets are considerably less value for money than a majority of the NRL clubs.
One of the few things the AFL has got right with Gather Round from the beginning.
Could probably only happen when there’s an even number of teams again.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.