On. To. The. Next. Melbourne advance to another preliminary final after an extraordinary finish at AAMI Park.
Melbourne – 18 (Wishart 8', Seve 26', Warbrick 79' tries; Meaney 3/5 goals)
Sydney – 13 (B Smith 34', Collins 66' tries; Walker 2/2 goals; Walker field goal 72')
This highlight package probably doesn’t do justice to an enthralling, tense night at AAMI Park, capped off by an exceptional match-winning moment.
Ref chat
Let’s rip the band-aid off first. Ashley Klein did not have a good night with the whistle. His level of refereeing hasn’t been good enough for a number of seasons and it’s mostly because he was a better referee under the two referee system. He should not have been appointed this week (as well as the other referee appointed to the Warriors match) due to their inability to send off Jack Wighton last week.
Referees have a hard enough job as it is, and due to the incompetence of V’Landys and Abdo in taking away their support to go and buy hotels instead, we now have to deal with this far too often. There’s almost no media outlet that can resist ref chat, especially in situations where there was howler, and then the ref in the middle overcompensates the way that he did immediately afterwards.
Yes the decision to allow the Harry Grant knock-on was a howler, but to suggest that Melbourne got the “rub of the green all night” as one reporter put it, ignores the actuality of #Kleined’s efforts. In any event, whether Melbourne won 14–13 because of the high tackle, or 18–13 as the scoreboard shows; both teams and all fans had to endure what was served up by the officials.
I’m not sure the comments of the failed politician and the smarmy bastard help either to be honest.
Act I – The understudy
When we found out that Jahrome Hughes was injured on Thursday and would miss the game, my immediate reaction was “well that’s not good.” With Jonah Pezet seemingly sidelined at the moment1 as well, it meant that Tyran Wishart would again moonlight at halfback. After failing to trouble the scorers last week, going in to a sudden death semi final without a recognised halfback… what could possibly go wrong.2
Wishart would get involved early, earning a penalty out of Brandon Smith after a nice run out of dummy half down the right channel. His try in the 8th minute came on the back of that field position with Melbourne working over the left edge before Wishart found space between Brandon Smith and Luke Keary to score untouched. Wishart’s dummy catching everyone by surprise as he scored his second career try.
Wishart looked like he was playing on adrenaline in the first 20 minutes. He did fade as the match progressed, especially as he seemed to have to do more field kicking than he would have preferred.
Act II – The villains
Victor Radley might be a useful rugby league player. His tackling technique however leaves much to be desired. If he’s not being sent to the sin bin for foul play,3 he is giving away penalties for lazy high tackles. His 14th penalty of the season resulted in Nick Meaney taking two points to give Melbourne a 6–0 lead after 18 minutes.
The main pantomime villain of this match though was Ashley Klein. His howler in 24th minute in not picking up Harry Grant’s knock-on was egregious. The Melbourne scored off the back of an obvious penalty in the next set through Marion Seve obviously isn’t a good look for the game, but it is worth watching the ten minutes after that to see how Klein overcompensated for his error and helped to get the Roosters back into the match.
Seve’s try did come on the back of Grant’s injection into the match in the 17th minute. His work from dummy half was able to straighten Melbourne’s attack, allowing Eliese Katoa to use his best assets in the right channel. Katoa’s offload to Wishart, who was able to flick it back to Grant to throw the final pass to Seve exposing the Roosters edge defence.
Act III – Suspense
Leading 10–0 after 28 minutes, Melbourne first handed the visitors field position when Tariq Sims dropped the ball in a 50:50 ruck infringement call. They immediately received a set restart and penalty, followed by another set restart. Melbourne only just survived that glut of possession on their own line through some rushing defence on their left side. That rushing defence fooling Klein4 into awarding another penalty, followed by another set restart, that this time the Roosters capitalised upon, with the mouth from Waiheke Island scoring against Melbourne for the first time.
Melbourne seemed to be anxiously looking for the half time break after the Roosters try, as the visitors came hard at them, looking like they could crack the Storm line in any set. There was no relief coming from Klein, who seemingly had put his whistle away whenever Melbourne had the ball.
Act IV – The Grind
For a long parts of this match, it felt like Melbourne were struggling to gain more than 40m per set. The Roosters looked to be dominating field position for long stretches, but couldn’t come up with the final play to score. Melbourne had individual moments of almost magic, but also looked bereft of scoring prowess with those connections missing last week, often looking disjointed again this week.
So it was that for much of the second half it was tense at AAMI Park. Melbourne seemed to be trying to grind their way to victory, but with a slender six point lead with 20 minutes to go following another penalty goal made by Meaney, that strategy was fraught with danger.
Melbourne had a lucky escape when the Bunker agreed with Klein’s ruling that Grant was obstructed by Lindsay Collins on a play where Paul Momirovski might have been awarded a penalty try had the movement continued.
When the visitors took off Brandon for Sandon Smith, they were able to break through for the equalising score. Lindsay Collins would be the beneficiary of the utility’s line break and quick play the ball from Radley.5
Act V – Climax
With scores level entering the final ten minutes, there was always going to be more scoring in regulation time. It would be the Roosters taking a field goal through Sam Walker after a poor end of a set from Munster gave the visitors field position.6 Walker’s field goal with just under nine minutes to go seemed to put Melbourne into panic mode, especially Munster.
Melbourne couldn’t set up properly for a field goal to level things up, with Wishart’s eventual attempt ending up comically hitting Tui Kamikamica in the back of the head. Entering the final four minutes, Melbourne were in a hole and the match seemed lost. A correct set restart call7 gave the home team one last chance. Grant was taken high, no penalty. Grant tried to crash over down the left channel, no dice.
Munster. He’s going to kick across them. It’s a one-on-one jumping contest… it’s taken out there by Melbourne… it’s a TRY!
Warbrick flew through the air like Superman.
Cue the pandemonium, flip the scoreboard. 16–13.
Meaney added the two to take it away from a famous scoreline, the Roosters couldn’t grab the short restart and Melbourne are now off to their 15th preliminary final. Amazing. Incredible.
Post match quotes
“It wasn’t pretty” seemed to be the theme from Bellsa:
We made real hard work of it to be honest. Our ability to hang in there, it felt like the first 20-30 minutes we were on top, but after that we were sorta chasing our tails for a fair bit of it.
Some of our options at times were poor, their kicking game was much superior to ours, so that’s something that we’ll need to look at for next week.
I was really proud of how we stuck in there. We needed to come back with a display like that after last week.
The comedy stylings of the coach when chatting about the intercept from the skipper was a highlight.
Was it worth it?
Must admit that after the Walker field goal it looked like Melbourne would be #TeamStraightSets🎾. The day was saved by one of those rare moments of sporting joy.
We might have been smaller in number due to scheduling,8 but the roar after the Warbrick try was right up there with some of the best moments at AAMI Park.
The moment was only spoiled by the choice of music before the next kickoff. There’s two pieces of music that should be banned at AAMI Park: Chelsea Fucking Dagger, and a particular instrumental track from 1972 that all sports venues should still be avoiding for the rest of time.
Of course after full time, looking across at the Roosters bench, this was a magnificent sight.
8/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Nick Meaney was immense at the back for Melbourne, diffusing eight difficult kicks from the Roosters playmakers. His only blemish was the two missed conversion attempts, but his involvement in attack drifting across the left side to help Cameron Munster, and the right side to link up with Tyran Wishart made him a key part of Melbourne actually putting on points this week.
Coming off the bench, Harry Grant was super in his involvement with both the ball and in defence.
In his 50th Storm appearance, Josh King didn’t have a good night with his hands, dropping a couple of passes in the first half, but he would recover to top the tackle count.
Semi Final points:
3 – Nick Meaney
2 – Harry Grant
1 – Will Warbrick
Leaderboard
31 – Harry Grant
23 – Jahrome Hughes
20 – Cameron Munster
17 – Nick Meaney
10 – Christian Welch, Trent Loiero, Will Warbrick
9 – Eliesa Katoa, Xavier Coates
7 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Josh King
5 – Tui Kamikamica
3 – Tepai Moeroa
2 – Alec MacDonald, Jonah Pezet, Marion Seve, Young Tonumaipea, Sualauvi Fa’alogo, Jayden Nikorima
1 – Reimis Smith, Justin Olam, Tom Eisenhuth, Grant Anderson
Next up
Preliminary final vs Penrith Panthers – Friday 22 September, 7:50pm @ Accor Stadium
Off to Sydney for a rematch of the 2020 NRL Grand Final and the 2021 preliminary final. Melbourne will be outsiders again, but footy is a funny game and you just never know.
Preview coming later in the week.
Congratulations Brisbane Tigers
On Sunday evening the Brisbane Tigers won the Queensland Cup Grand Final 22–18 against the Burleigh Bears. The win makes it the third time a Storm affiliate has won a premiership, following the Norths Devils (1998) and Cronulla Sharks (2013).
It was a win for the true believers at Coorparoo and the stalwarts of the Tigers. Storm players Kane Bradley, George Jennings, Jordan Grant, Tristan Powell, Cole Geyer and Joe Chan all featured in the win, as well as Jonah Pezet who returned from injury to guide the Tigers around the park. His efforts, with former Storm player and Tigers captain Ryley Jacks, were crucial in the win.
The Tigers will be at the NRL Grand Final in a couple of weeks for the NRL State Championship facing off against the NSW Cup winners, with that match between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and North Sydney Bears scheduled for this coming weekend.
Or not as the case may be…
See New Zealand Warriors last week.
Eight times in the last three seasons, including in three straight appearances this season.
See I can be kind to Kleined!
Combined with a very poor defensive read from Justin Olam.
Radley was well offside, but Klein was never going to blow that as a penalty.
Melbourne’s first since the 17th minute… rub of the green 🙄
Seriously, play this game at 7:50pm on Saturday night and the place is packed. But then the NRL still don’t know how to actually sell tickets to Victorians.