Game 698 – S27E12 Review

Manly Warringah Sea Eagles 26–20 Melbourne Storm

jonnyforeigner

May 27, 2024

Some losses are more frustrating than others. This was one of them against a very mediocre opponent.

Manly – 26 (Talau 28', 67', B Trbojevic 25', J Trbojevic 49' tries; Garrick 5/6 goals)

Melbourne – 20 (Kotoa 39', Meaney 55', Hughes 75' tries; Meaney 4/4 goals)

Sigh. Battle of Brookvale this was not.

Five day breaks

Right off the bat, let’s get to Bellyache’s press conference response to the second question that he was asked about the short turnaround from last week:

It doesn’t help. The preparation was short and we had to make some different changes. I’m not quite sure why there is still… with the Thursday night game added now, why there are five day turnarounds, or as many. I think that we can handle five day turnarounds okay if one of the games are at home. Where we had two away, we had travel twice. Again, that’s not whingeing about it, but for me, if you’ve got a five day turnaround, one of them needs to be at home.
I just know that travelling can tire you out. When you have a five day turnaround, you need at least one of those games at home.
I don’t know whether that got misplaced by the Magic Round [that] was our home game, even though we had to travel to Brisbane which is one of our longer trips, but for me I’m not quite sure why there’s still as many five day turnarounds for all teams, not just us.
It’s not the reason we lost tonight, it didn’t help with our preparation, but at the end of the day we had our chances tonight and we start well at all. That’s what cost us the game.

Melbourne did look like a team in need of a training session or two. The combinations, especially in the middle and with Tyran Wishart moving to the left, didn’t look like they had a chance to mesh together.

Perhaps the decision to bring in Hughes in hindsight was an error especially considering where a couple of Manly’s tries were scored, but the team would have been without three of the club’s best spine players had he not played. I suspect the final margin would have been far greater in his absence, given the high scores seen elsewhere around the NRL.

The five day breaks including travel is certainly an interesting problem that the non-Sydney teams often face, but it will be the only time this season that Melbourne has to deal with this specific situation. The closest other occasion will be the back-to-back trips away in round 15 to New Zealand for a Saturday evening match, followed by a Friday night trip to Brisbane to play the Dolphins in round 16.1 There is a similar five day break between Melbourne hosting the Dolphins in round 25 to their Thursday night match with the Cowboys in round 26. That second example seems a little bit egregious with the Cowboys coming off the bye and the long-standing knowledge that fans in North Queensland find it difficult themselves to travel to attend matches not on Saturdays.

As for the reference to Magic Round being a Melbourne home game 1,400km from AAMI Park… don’t make me saddle up the high horse again.

There was a game played…

Right. The game itself.

Melbourne showed up at an apparently sold out #FortressShithole in the first half… or did they? Harry Grant was channeling Richard Swain in the plain black headgear to start the match was something of a look, but he ditched it during the match with the cut on his ear unprotected.

It took Melbourne 12 minutes to cross half way with the ball in hand. Manly were already up 2–0 thanks to a #Kleined penalty against Harry Grant. The Storm were making errors galore,2 and by half time the negative stats were bad reading:

Possession: 43%
Completion rate: 12/18 (67%)
Run metres: 595 (versus 797)
Tackles: 173 (versus 141)
Missed tackles: 19 (versus 9)
Errors: 6
Tackled in opposition half: 16 (versus 45)
Tackled in opposition 20m: 16 (versus 45)

In some of his other post match remarks, Craig Bellamy praised the team’s resilience in keeping the score close. Manly’s two tries in the first half came in back-to-back sets again following Melbourne errors.3 Their first exposing some poor defence from Melbourne on the right edge, while their second saw Manly return to that edge for Tommy Talau to get over the line. At 12–0 down with half an hour gone, Melbourne looked cooked. Nick Meaney had just endured a terrible five minutes and Manly were up and about in the dewy conditions.

Needing to score before half time, there was some spark when Alec McDonald and Nelson Asofa-Solomona entered the fray. On the back of a penalty, it was nice to see the Melbourne right edge hit back with a try of their own. The little grubber from Hughes was perfectly positioned for Eli Katoa to score his sixth try of the season.

The minor skirmish of Brookvale

At his fifth club, Nathan Brown doesn’t strike me as the smartest rugby league player. To give away a penalty on the first tackle of the second half for reasons was up there with the dumbest things I’ve seen this season. I guess it got the commentators going for their annual comparisons with the past.

Getting that out of their system, Melbourne could have got right back into the match by scoring… but NAS dropped the ball on second tackle. Sigh. Errors and discipline.

With Will Warbrick off through injury, the flow of this game switched back in favour of the home team. A soft penalty got Manly out of a jam and with better field position Dally Cherry-Evans does what he always does against Melbourne, sending Jack Trobojevic into a massive hole in the heart of the Storm defence.

Again trailing by 12 points, Melbourne needed something in the final 30 minutes. What followed though were more unforced errors with the ball. A spark of brilliance from Hughes and Fa’alogo sent Meaney over the line in a nice passing move through to Melbourne’s right edge, the decoy run from Katoa getting their edge defence out of position.

Taking the two

Off the back of the Meaney try, for the first time in the match Melbourne looked up and about. The next set from the restart saw Harry Grant break into open space after finding the Manly markers out of position. His pass to Hughes had Melbourne on the front foot and ready to attack the line after the Sea Eagles gave away a penalty. So down six points, Melbourne took the shot at goal. In a way I get it. Free points in a tight game is usually a good enough reason to take an easy shot at goal. But in these circumstances, with this team on the field… not so much. Especially with 20 minutes to go away from home. Push for the try, be bold. Taking the two gave Manly a chance to reset, focus and get into a grind.

Never give a referee a chance to make a decision

I have long-standing enmity with Ashley Klein. His brand is interference, injecting himself into the contest to exercise his authority. His interpretations are often nonsensical and exceedingly hard to justify. The best way to play in games controlled by him is to never let him have the chance to make a call that could alter the course of a match. Melbourne have been doing well at that in recent seasons,4 but in this moment here on last tackle, Christian Welch let #Kleined happen.

Is Welch square at marker? Was the dummy half late to the play-the-ball? Was Klein always going to give this as a set restart? All of those things can be true. Let your opponents make errors, don’t give the referee a chance to make one.5

Of course Manly would score in the resulting set of six. That they moved the ball to their left against the Melbourne right edge wasn’t surprising.

From there Melbourne went into panic football mode. It wasn’t pretty, it hardly is ever effective. With five minutes to go, Melbourne did cut the margin back to six points with Hughes and Wishart combining in the middle of the field to see the halfback score adjacent to the posts, but that was all Melbourne could achieve. The final few minutes saw Melbourne huff and puff and Manly defend multiple attempts on their line.

Learning lessons in defeat

Because Melbourne lose on average just one-third of the time, losses tend to be amplified and scrutinsed heavily, but they highlight the areas where improvement is required. For all of the work the back five do well, especially in defusing kicks, the difference in the metres gained early in Melbourne’s sets compared to Manly was a big reason why the home team held a territorial advantage. The work of their wingers and centres gave their middle forwards the boost that they needed to get over the advantage line. Melbourne just couldn’t get the same output, with only Sua Fa’alogo posing questions of the Manly defence with his pace and footwork.

Offload licences will be under review at training before the Storm’s next game. Suspect Eli Katoa will just maintain his, Nelson Asofa-Solomona might keep his, but the other middle and edge forwards may have their licences revoked. Ineffective offloads have always been a bugbear of mine, and watching Melbourne under Craig Bellamy for the last two decades, I suspect he feels similarly.

With more training sessions in their roles, Wishart and Hughes will be able to form a better partnership over the next few months. There are glimpses that the pairing can work well together, especially if Wishart can continue to improve his kicking game.

Considering the players missing through injury, and the five day turnaround to a ground Melbourne struggle at; this loss isn’t all that terrible, just frustrating. To finish top two, let alone top four on the ladder, it’s games like this against mediocre opposition that teams need to win come the end of the season. It will be interesting to see who gets this weekend off with the bye, and who might be off to the Queensland or NSW Cup for an extra game.

Stat offloads

Manly have now beaten Melbourne in three straight matches at #FortressShithole. The attendance was 17,211 which puts it as the highest attendance Manly have attracted to a match against Melbourne since 2011.
Melbourne hadn’t lost a match refereed by Ashley Klein since S25E25, a streak of eight victories following the match at Parramatta in August 2022.
The Grant Anderson Experience report: Before stat corrections, Anderson was -4 on the Fantasy NRL points, later upgraded to -1. Which is great as a golf score, but as a measure of the 33 minutes that he was on the field after replacing Will Warbrick, not so much. Oooft. One missed tackle, two errors. A right winger, Anderson is not.

Was it worth it?

With Hughes back I had hoped that Melbourne wouldn’t let this one slip before a bye. Instead defeat left a flat feeling all weekend for me. I hate losing at the best of times, but to play so poorly in the first half and not really snap out of it wasn’t fun.

Melbourne ended up with 40 missed tackles again, a common feature of losses over the past few seasons.

1/10

Storm Machine Player of the Year

Hard to get a read on who were Melbourne’s best this week. The Dally M judge found three points for Jahrome Hughes, which seemed kind of fair, but with the first two tries scored in his defensive zone, I’m not so generous.

I thought Fa’alogo was solid at the back, defusing all of the tricky kicks sent in his direction. The concern about his game at the moment is his defence, which will inhibit his role up in the line once Ryan Papenhuyzen returns. His try assist for the Meaney try was some slick passing which we haven’t seen enough of so far in his NRL career.

A point also this week for the much-maligned Trent Loiero. Since moving back to the bench, his role in the middle seems more defined. He’s getting through a power of work in those minutes, and is being a little more judicious in his passing and offloads.

Round 12 points:

1 – Jahrome Hughes
1 – Sualauvi Fa’alogo
1 – Trent Loiero

Leaderboard:

13 – Jahrome Hughes
10 – Eliesa Katoa
8 – Xavier Coates, Harry Grant
6 – Ryan Papenhuyzen
5 – Cameron Munster
3 – Tui Kamikamica, Cameron Munster
2 – Shawn Blore, Joe Chan, Josh King, Tyran Wishart, Trent Loiero, Sualauvi Fa’alogo
1 – Jonah Pezet, Christian Welch, Alec MacDonald, Reimis Smith, Grant Anderson

Around the grounds

Jersey Flegg Cup — New Zealand Warriors 28–24 Melbourne Storm

Leading 20–4 at half time, the Storm juniors couldn’t complete the job across the ditch, with the Warriors launching a second half blitz to take the win. A second try to Matthew Hill gave the Storm some hope, but they couldn’t score in the final minutes to steal the win. The boys will be back at Broadmeadows on Saturday afternoon (2pm) against sixth-placed Manly.

Queensland Cup — Sunshine Coast Falcons 16–22 Tweed Heads Seagulls

A disappointing loss for the Falcons, with the Seagulls take the points away from their trip north. Melbourne’s Young Tonumaipea scored the Falcons first try, helping to cut the margin back to 14–10 at half time, and the Falcons would take the lead not long after through a converted try to Caius Faatili, but the visitors would hit back despite having Jerome Veve in the bin during the second half. AJ Gudgeon, Jack Howarth and Lazarus Vaalepu all in action for the birds, who will host the Dolphins next Saturday (5pm) for the James Ackerman Cup.

The Tigers had the bye this week, and will travel to Townsville to play the Blackhawks next Saturday (5pm).

New South Wales Cup — North Sydney Bears 22–16 New Zealand Warriors

Bronson Garlick, Joe Chan and Dean Ieremia turned out for the Bears in their tight win over the Warriors at North Sydney Oval. It was 10-all at the break before the Warriors retook the lead, but two converted tries in five minutes gave the home team a six point lead, which they defended for the final 20 minutes. The Bears next travel to Blacktown to play Manly’s reserves on Sunday (3pm).

Suncorp Super Netball — Sunshine Coast Lightning 76–65 Queensland Firebirds

In the first instalment of the Battle of the Bruce for 2024, the Lightning made it two wins in a row, outpacing the Firebirds in the first quarter and surging ahead in the second half to take the win. It puts the Lightning back in the top four at the halfway mark of the season, with a huge match against the ladder-leading Fever at the Sunshine Coast on Saturday night (7pm).

Next up

Round 13 — bye
Round 14 vs Newcastle Knights – Sunday 9 June, 2:00pm @ AAMI Park

It’s that time of the year where the actual competition takes a back seat to the meaningless exhibition series. Two Storm players will be risking injury at Accor Stadium on Wednesday 5 June. Hopefully both are able to play the following Sunday against the Knights.

There will be a bye week special post here later this week.