After the disappointing loss to the Knights, this big win under the roof was just the tonic needed ahead of the run to the finals.
Melbourne – 46 (Grant 12', 23', Hughes 28', Katoa 38', King 48', Seve 59', Munster 68', Warbrick 77' tries; Meaney 7/8 goals)
Parramatta – 16 (Russell 5', Hopgood 33', Moretti 64' tries; Moses 2/3 goals)
Come children, sit and watch Melbourne score some fantastic tries against Parramatta.
There’s just something inherently fun about watching Melbourne beat Parramatta.1
Editor’s note: Apologies that this is a Monday review of a game that happened on a Friday night. There’s a lot going on in the world of sport at the moment.
A slow start quickly turns around
Let’s get this off the bat right away – praise be to the football gods that Melbourne won’t be back at Marvel Stadium again for the foreseeable future. While the “perfect conditions” is nice, the muted atmosphere of a crowd of just over 20,000 spread far away from the pitch is not ideal. Thankfully the play of the home team brought the atmosphere up a few notches, but there’s no place like home and it will be great to get back to Swan Street in a couple of weeks.
That muted atmosphere was evident early when Parramatta would open the scoring in the fifth minute. A lost ball from Will Warbrick2 gave the visitors field position, and a six again call put pressure on the Melbourne defence. Sean Russell finding the line just inside the corner post on the end of a good passing move to the right from Mitch Moses and Clint Gutherson.
With the Eels aiming up in defence early, Melbourne wasn’t finding much in the middle of the park, instead it would be an early shift to the left that would get the Storm behind the visitors. A kick from Xavier Coates after breaking clear wouldn’t result in a try, but with Cameron Munster looking dangerous moving the ball to his left, it did feel like there was a nice seem to work with.
The bright start from the visitors almost lead to another try, the Eels would make a line break down their left that probably should have resulted in a try, but on the next play they would move the ball right for Russell to come very close to scoring a double. Only the last-ditch defending of Nick Meaney preventing the try, with the Parramatta winger putting the ball down on the sideline.
Melbourne’s opening try would come through the wizardry of Harry Grant. Responding to the near-try, Melbourne’s right edge made a nice break, and a couple of set restart gave Melbourne attacking position for Grant to bamboozle the marker defence, with the hooker beating Gutherson to score. Grant’s ability to read the play was the key to the try, but it was interesting to see that Melbourne were able to get around the defence on both flanks after encountering tougher resistance in the middle of the field.
After the try, Melbourne started to get a roll on, even able to make more ground in the middle after their earlier struggles. Hughes was looking dangerous and it was only a matter of time that Melbourne would blow this match wide open. The introduction of Alec MacDonald combined with Munster getting busy, helping the Storm into excellent field position. Grant’s second try3 coming after a backtracking Eels line was exposed by Hughes for Melbourne to take a 12–4 lead.
Very good Jahrome
That try assist from Hughes was the start of a purple patch for the Melbourne halfback, with the Kiwi scoring a try of his own to extend the lead. Taking the ball one off the ruck from Grant who had already split the markers, Hughes was able to step inside of Gutherson lurking up in the line, and with the Eels fullback beaten there was no one left to beat to the line. It was a great try from the halfback, reminiscent of the work of some of the greats of the game.
Parramatta would score next to bring the margin back to 18–10, after #Kleined tried his best to keep the visitors in the game with a soft penalty. J’maine Hopgood grabbing the try from a Ryan Matterson line ball forward pass close to the line.
Melbourne wouldn’t be down too long after conceding that try, hitting back close to half time through Eliesa Katoa who crashed over off the back of another try assist from Hughes. It was heads up play from Hughes to target Daejarn Asi and Bailey Simonsson.
Smokin’ the Eels
There’s been matches over the years as a Storm fan you just sit back and enjoy the play unfold in front of you as it brings you joy. The second half was one of those times.4 Melbourne looked like they could score any time they entered the Parramatta half, with the spine players giving the opposition headaches. You could see that the forward pack (especially the interchange forwards of MacDonald, Katoa and Moeroa) wanted to make an impact going forward with the ball and Hughes and Munster were able to feed off that. The first try of the second half coming when Josh King was on the back of another Hughes ball that beat the Eels in the middle of the field. Melbourne were able to manipulate the defence at their whim.
While it did take another ten minutes for Melbourne to score their sixth try of the evening, it came after the players were able to show their defensive attitude and effort that was missing last week. That Marion Seve was the next tryscorer was a nice reward for his efforts in just his third game for the season. His try coming on the back of a big line break from Hughes who beat Asi again in the line.
At 36–10 the contest was effectively over with 20 minutes to play, and although Parramatta would score through Luca Moretti (his first NRL try), that was all the joy the visitors would see.
Melbourne wasn’t done with their feast, Munster getting in on the tryscoring action magically darting and weaving his way through Eels defenders to score what’s becoming his signature try. It’s unbelievable how he keeps getting away with seemingly waltzing through the defence, with opposition players either not laying a hand on him or looking like he’s got spiders on him.
Hughes would put an exclamation mark on a dominant night for the club in front of the Melbourne Old Boys when he and Seve set up Warbrick for the eighth try of the night.
Coach quotes
You could tell Bellsa was somewhat pleased with that performance:
Just a win tonight is what we were after. We didn't want to be moping around with an occasion like this. It was nice to get a win but it was even nicer to play better and more consistently. I thought Parramatta started strong and really out-aggressed us, but to our guys credit they steadied the ship and we got out in front.
We really controlled the pace of the game [in the second half] and got back to doing what we know works for us, so the second half was very pleasing. But there’s still a few things attack-wise we need to work on.
We need to show in the next couple of weeks that we can do that consistently. We just need to make sure we don't lose our way after tonight and get too happy with ourselves. We need to work hard to make sure that we bring something close to that every week.
Was it worth it?
In the lead up to this match, the News Corp legacy media in Melbourne had a nice series of articles about the club in the lead up to the 25th anniversary celebrations on both Friday night at the game, and the gala dinner on the Saturday night. The memo didn’t travel to The Bad Place.
I love that this image triggers so many.
That’s six trophies. Ones won on Grand Final days and nights through hard work and effort.
It was the best that the club had the celebrations to coincide with Parramatta coming to town.5 That 2009 replica of a replica trophy looked good out there,6 and on Saturday night at the 25th anniversary dinner.
Friday night was fun, seeing all the Melbourne Old Boys form the guard of honour, with the usual suspects being a menace. Was also great seeing the over 70 odd MOB at the dinner on Saturday night, was very cool chatting with the more famous names, as well as those players that some Storm fans might have forgotten.
9.5/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Hughes and Grant were the stand-outs for Melbourne, with Hughes running for 185 metres and setting up four tries. Munster was back to his usual best too in what was a good night for the Melbourne playmakers.
For the rest of the team, there were a lot of very good performances, but I wanted to give points to Marion Seve on his return to the team (48 post contact metres, which was a team high) and Christian Welch who found his smart offload game again.
Round 22 points:
4 – Jahrome Hughes
3 – Harry Grant
2 – Cameron Munster
1 – Marion Seve
1 – Christian Welch
Leaderboard
26 – Harry Grant
18 – Cameron Munster
16 – Jahrome Hughes
13 – Nick Meaney
10 – 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, Marion Seve
Next up
Penrith Panthers – BlueBet Stadium, Friday 4 August, 8:00pm
At the start of the season there’s games that fans pencil in as wins, and others that are pegged as losses. This week is one of the latter. Going to the home of the defending premiers is a tough ask and despite the good signs shown against Parramatta, Melbourne will have to lift to a much higher level if they are to knock off the Panthers. Could be at least one change to the team after Young Tonumaipea left the field late in the game.
Preview post coming later in the week.
Not only Melbourne though, it’s good for the soul to watch Parramatta lose against almost every opponent they face. I won’t even let Brenton Speed, Andrew Johns and Brad Fittler in commentary for Nine spoil the replay of this match. In fact, it probably makes it more fun that Speed had to call this one as a Parra fan.
With Melbourne burning their challenge before I had even taken my seat.
His 20th for the club in just 55 games. Cameron Smith’s 48 tries in 430 games looks in serious doubt from his heir.
It was especially aesthetically pleasing doing it in the faux-throwback jerseys.
The club that also breached the salary cap in a big way… to finish last.
Of all six of the trophies it does look the least “real” up close compared to the other five.