Melbourne do enough to win an oddly officiated1 game for their thirteenth in a row against the Broncos.
Melbourne – 24 (Warbrick 38’, 74’, Munster 11’, Olam 60’ tries; Meaney 4/6 goals)
Brisbane – 16 (Farnworth (penalty) 16’, Athars 23’, Paix 77’ tries; Walsh 2/3 goals)
The highlights aren’t going to do this game justice:
As predicted in the preview, Tui Kamikamica returned for Melbourne, starting in place of Nelson Asofa-Solomona who went back to the bench.
You get the feeling that Gus Gould is a big fan of commentating from the studio, with this early monologue on Nine:2
Really been looking forward to this game all week. I reckon every now and then a game comes along where you’ve got to make a statement about yourself, and the Brisbane Broncos need to make that statement tonight. They need to put this “Melbourne Storm thing” behind them. The Storm have pretty much owned them for a long time. The Broncos are in good form [and] they need to put this behind them. Go down to Melbourne tonight and win.3
From the start, Brisbane looked on for this one, with Reece Walsh looking especially dangerous. Melbourne looked like they wanted to get into the grind early, with Tui Kamikamica and Harry Grant both able to make metres in the middle of the park. On the back of a six again call, Melbourne bust the Broncos through the middle with Cameron Munster scoring next to the posts. The try came after Melbourne probed the Brisbane edges moving the ball around, but it was the run from Harry Grant two tackles earlier in the set that provided the catalyst.
Let’s address the controversies. Todd Smith had a poor night, but he was aided and abetted in that substandard performance by Gerard Sutton as the “senior review official.”4
16th minute – Olam no try
Watching live, I was comfortable with this not being a penalty try as Olam might not have scored if Reece Walsh had attempted to tackle him, but it’s clearly a shoulder charge and penalty/professional foul. That the match review subsequently charged Walsh with a low grade offence shows that Sutton got it wrong. He would also compound the error by ruling the wrong restart procedure, giving the Broncos better field position (coupled with a set restart) for the next flashpoint.
17th minute – Farnworth penalty try
The fun thing about this entire play – Walsh’s offload that hits Herbie Farnworth’s knee is a forward pass which should have negated everything that came after. Ignoring that (like the officials did), the knee through from Farnworth is fine, the contest for the ball before the in goal area… oh boy. If we’re going to call that a penalty try every time, then okay no worries. Harry Grant goes to kick the ball from under Farnworth who goes to ground like he had been pushed.5 I’m not sure that from the position each player was in, that Farnworth is likely to score had there been less contact prior to him attempting to gather the ball. That leaves the referee to either blow a professional foul penalty or the penalty try. Given the incident just a minute before attracted neither. Oooft.
So this is the issue – Smith and Sutton have messed up both decisions or neither. I don’t think you’d find anyone who would unbiasedly suggest they got both right.6
Notwithstanding the decision, at 6–all and the Broncos now missing their halfback, Melbourne should have been able to start bossing this game. Melbourne still looked vaguely clunky with the ball, especially moving from left to right, and the failure to challenge a clear strip when Nick Meaney was ruled to have lost the ball showed that the confidence levels weren’t high.
21st minute – tap restart
This is quite simply put another symptom of the idiotic decision to remove the assistant referee. Smith of course called “play on” like a Lemming, but that Gould moans in commentary that there’s a player in front of the mark that subsequently doesn’t affect the play shouldn’t matter and wants the rules changed, is more reason to remove his microphone. One day a bold referee will penalise a team for restarting play incorrectly (whether by tap or kick) because they had teammates in front of the mark, and on that day people will lose their minds, but I will be laughing maniacally.
Again though Brisbane were finding space in the middle of the park, which was giving them space to move the ball to their dangerous left flank. That movement led to the Broncos second try, with Walsh showing great vision to loop a long ball to Jesse Arthars to score in the corner. There wasn’t much that Reimis Smith or Will Warbrick could have done differently, but it is again disappointing that Melbourne’s faileed to read the numbers allowing a ball player to mesmerise defenders close to the line.
29th minute – the first melee
I’ve seen some talk that Jahrome Hughes should have been penalised or even sin binned as third man in defending Harry Grant who had just been slapped by Thomas Flegler.
Let’s give Todd Smith some credit, there was nothing to do here other than regain control and call play on.
With the Broncos leading 10–6, Melbourne looked to be in a bit of a hole – Nelson Asofa-Solomona limped off after just ten minutes on the park, and his absence was definitely causing Melbourne issues getting the ball forward in the middle.
38th minute – Farnworth sin bin
After a bit of sustained pressure from Melbourne, a second tackle kick from Hughes looked to be going easily dead with Reimis Smith hitting the turf. The elbow from Farnworth was cynical and a penalty was probably sufficient, but referees have been calling this a professional foul and sin bin for a while now. In a game of odd refereeing moments, this was probably the easiest decision of the night.
Against 12 men, Melbourne needed to take advantage before half time, and were able to level up the scores in the subsequent set, with Munster and Hughes combining to send the ball to the right edge for Warbrick to score. That Warbrick was able to have the confidence to gather the ball and beat Ezra Mam was really nice for the inexperienced winger.
Coming out from the break, with scores level and playing against 12 for another six minutes or so, Melbourne should have been looking to attack, but started the half somewhat muted and contained by the Broncos defence.
44th minute – Warbrick try denied
One of my favourite rugby league maxims is never score on zero tackle. Doing so gives the officials the chance to make an impact on the game… Sutton gleefully took it.
Walsh knocked on and Melbourne scored in the other corner through Warbrick…
Really? This is your sole evidence:
Coates being ruled to have one foot in front of the ball when Munster kicked it. Sutton is a tool as the decision allowed Brisbane to run out the rest of the time that Farnworth was off the field.
Melbourne should have scored again in the 51st minute after Hughes broke the line on the right edge to offload to Eliesa Katoa, who celebrated scoring his first Storm try BEFORE ACTUALLY SCORING THE TRY.7 Full credit to Mam for knocking the ball free, but next time just score the try and then celebrate please.
Fortunately for Katoa, Brisbane didn’t capitalise immediately on the next set with Farnworth’s last pass to Arthars both going forward and into touch.8 Melbourne did look likely to score next, but it wasn't until the next flashpoint that they got the next try.
56th minute – Carrigan sin bin
I was surprised to see big NAS back out there after he left the field in the first half, and his first touch back on the field he went down hurt again, clutching at his leg. Patrick Carrigan’s actions in the tackle might not be a textbook hip drop, but let’s be real it’s a hip drop in the sense that it is precisely the tackle that players need to eliminate from the game. In the before times this is penalty and on report allowing the free interchange, but in the current times the penalty and sin bin is what they’re mandating so poor Kevvie Walters needs to know better if his post match comments are any guide:
I’m pretty frustrated actually. I just don’t feel that we got a game of football. Were they fair sin binnings? You wouldn’t like to see that happen in a Grand Final, someone get sin binned for that.
As for what happened after with Carrigan’s clear dissent and no further action being taken, yeah again some consistency would be nice. Subsequently the match review has disagreed with the initial review that this was enough to warrant a dangerous contact charge, so who know what message that is sending to the competition.9
Against 12 men for the second time in the game, it looked like Melbourne would fail to take advantage, and instead Brisbane looked to have scored when Walsh stole the ball from Warbrick to cross over under the posts. Fortunately for the winger, there was two in the tackle with Todd Smith somehow failing to see that in originally awarding the try.
Melbourne would extend their lead to six points, with Olam scoring after the old “dangerous second kick” play. The two kicks on the play were perfect, with Hughes finding Coates on the second kick, with the winger tapping it back to Olam to score.10
With the penalty that came from the doink play (from Billy Walters taking out Munster who was chasing his own kick) Melbourne would lead 18–10 and were able to smother Brisbane in defence, eating up time and making enough ground with the ball to keep the Broncos outside of good field position. Somehow Sutton was able to overrule another decision via a very dubious captain’s challenge from the Broncos, with both Selwyn Cobbo and Walsh touching the ball for knock ons, both of which were ignored by Sutton. It wouldn’t cost Melbourne though, with the Storm scoring the next try coming after the Broncos would lose possession after a wild pass from Cory Paix.
With five minutes left, a bit of ad-lib footy from Melbourne saw Hughes get the ball on zero tackle after a Walsh knock on. Hughes was able to put up a pinpoint kick to Warbrick who wouldn’t be denied his first NRL double. It was good reward for Melbourne with the 14 point margin probably an accurate reflection of the gap between the sides on the night. Of course, that wouldn’t be the final margin with Paix grabbing a late consolation try for Brisbane after the last refereeing oddity of the night.
78th minute – the third melee
Coming immediately after a minor scuffle a minute beforehand, the third melee came as Paix decided to take advantage of Flegler taking out Aaron Pene at marker. This was your classic no try because of interference with the defence, but you get the feeling that Smith and Sutton just wanted the game (stretching into a third hour) to end. That Flegler and Pene were sin binned ostensibly for wrestling each other was just standard late game shenanigans.
80th minute – Coates no try
Of course there had to be one last refereeing howler for the night, but at this point it doesn’t matter so let’s just:
In the post match, Bellyache was in a better mood than last week:
It was a strange sort of game. Seemed to go for a hell of a long time, thought it was an AFL game with the amount of time it took.
Couple of basic things that are important for us to be playing well, I thought we did them reasonably well. We’re happy with the result. It was a very stop start game.
Was it worth it?
I skirted around this a little in my preview, but beating Brisbane will always be satisfying. From the early days of the club they’ve always lorded it over Melbourne, aided and abetted by their propaganda newsletter The Courier-Mail. Melbourne’s dominance over them since #SimpkinsIsADickhead is a thing to savour, and extending it now to 13 games as the Bronco’s longest losing streak against one opponent is a nice stat to have over the Queenslanders.
The game though – ooft. Todd Smith and Gerard Sutton did their best to ruin everyone’s Thursday night, with both sides eventually suffering from their incompetency. If there was an equivalent of reserve grade, Smith should be punted there for a month, while Sutton should have been fired from a cannon into the sun a few rotations ago.
The fact that the game started late (I checked my phone while waiting on the field for the Broncos to run out and it was already 7:50pm) and wasn’t over two hours later, is further proof that Vlandysball is making the product objectively worse. Thankfully for the first time all season there wasn’t a #metrofail to get away from the ground in a timely fashion.11
7/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Jahrome Hughes was very good for Melbourne after a lean spell.
As Bellyache said post match:
It was probably one of his best games nearly ever, not the best game ever, but one of his best games. He was outstanding tonight. He really stepped up to the plate, much more intent in all his actions tonight on both sides of the ball. I thought he was tremendous for us.
I thought Christian Welch bounced back well from a poor game last week as the skipper stretched his run to be undefeated in ten matches against Brisbane. I do wish he would straighten his runs at times though, the angled run isn’t having the same impact as it did previously.
Katoa probably deserved a point for his efforts, but not scoring that try will cost him yet again here.
Round 11 points:
3 – Jahrome Hughes
2 – Christian Welch
1 – Cameron Munster
1 – Trent Loiero
1 – Will Warbrick
Leaderboard
13 – Harry Grant, Cameron Munster
11 – Nick Meaney
7 – Christian Welch,
6 – Trent Loiero
4 – Josh King, Jahrome Hughes
3 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Will Warbrick
2 – Xavier Coates, Eliesa Katoa, Alec MacDonald Jonah Pezet
1 – Reimis Smith, Justin Olam
Next up
The Dolphins – Suncorp Stadium, Saturday 20 May, 7:30pm
Back on the road for the Storm, with Melbourne not returning home again until the June long weekend. First up are the Dolphins at Suncorp Stadium, because The is either too small, insignificant or far away; or maybe it is just the definite article. Not sure which.
Of course the Dolphins will have a vaguely familiar feel, having signed Melbourne’s entire 2022 forward pack (provided they were aged 30). Wayne Bennett is scheduled to coach NSW/ARL/SL/NRL game 899,12 with his teams only tasting success 14 times in 48 matches against Melbourne.
Anyway, your humble correspondent is travelling up to the game, so if you see me, no you didn’t. Full preview landing with me in Queensland next week.
I used that phrasing in my instant reaction tweet because, Todd Smith on the field and Gerard Sutton in the Bunker were bad, very bad.
Peter Psaltis, Phil Gould and Andrew Johns were in Sydney for Nine; while they had Billy Slater and Danika Mason at AAMI Park. Meanwhile Ginnane and Ennis were in Sydney for Fox League. Again, the commentary boxes are currently unavailable at AAMI Park so they have some excuse not to travel, but it’s still a poor viewing experience.
He was so proud of this he almost repeated it verbatim five minutes later. Perhaps senility is about to claim another victim from the Nine commentary team.
Can we go back to calling them the video referee please? Since they eliminated the former players, this “senior review official” phrasing is just dumb.
Having watched all available angles, my view is that Grant doesn’t push Farnworth and the Italian judges are giving Farnworth a solid six.
Of course there will be one: Graham Annesley in his weekly propaganda briefing.
Sometimes all caps is needed.
Unlike earlier they actually called that one forward.
Except further fodder for the imbeciles on the Very Bad TV show on channel 502.
It would be nice if Coates had stronger hands to cleanly grab some of these high kicks, he had been favouring too much the tap back of late.
Somehow making it to Richmond Station for the 10:11pm train, which left on time, was quite the achievement.
RLP is right and don’t let the NRL tell you otherwise.