Game 701 – S27E16 Review
Dolphins 24–30 Melbourne Storm
Despite Melbourne’s defensive structure, the Storm keep finding ways to score more points than their opposition to win matches. Is it sustainable?
Dolphins – 24 (K Bromwich 9', Aitkin 22', Fuller 30', Isaako 57' tries; Isaako 4/6 goals)
Melbourne – 30 (Papenhuyzen 12', Wishart 27', Hughes 37', Warbrick 43', King 53' tries; Meaney 5/6 goals)
If you like tries scored with the play starting in the middle of the field, this week’s highlights are especially for you.
White jerseys?
Before starting this week, can anyone explain why Melbourne wore their clash jerseys against Redcliffe? There is no greater contrast in world sport than a red team playing against a blue team, so why was it fucking necessary for Melbourne to wear their white based jerseys in this match? This made me mad.1
Playing on the edges
In the preview I predicted that there might be some changes to the way Melbourne’s back five would take the field in this one and sure enough there was a late change with Jack Howarth starting just his second NRL match, this time at left centre inside Grant Anderson who would be filling in for Xavier Coates. The right edge set up outside of Jahrome Hughes and Eli Katoa would be the combination of Nick Meaney and the returning Will Warbrick. Those changes put Sua Fa’alogo back on the bench with Trent Loiero, meaning Nelson Asofa-Solomona started in the middle for the first time this season.
The changes put Melbourne in a mood to shift the ball and use the channels. From Melbourne’s first set in possession there was a distinct game plan from Hughes and Tyran Wishart to direct play to the edges, trying to play around the Dolphins forward pack where possible. That plan saw Red Fish winger Jack Bostock suffer a concussion in the third minute of play when he awkwardly tackled Warbrick near the sideline.2
By the end of this match, of Melbourne’s middle forwards only Christian Welch would run for over 100 metres, and astonishingly such was the Storm’s want to shift the ball Bronson Garlick would be credited with no run metres having not been tackled with the ball in his 61 minutes on the field.3
This mindset of shifting the ball to the edges was welcome after being beaten up by the Wahs middle forwards last week, and it certainly brought the Storm into the match in an attacking sense. But there’s two sides to a rugby league match, and it’s Melbourne’s defence on the edges, especially on the right edge up against the opposition’s left that is the problem in 2024.
With the Dolphins shuffling Kenny Bromwich, Euan Aitken and Herbie Farnworth on that side of the field in the absence of Bostock; there was cause for alarm for Melbourne from the very next set in the red zone, first Aitken went close to scoring against a very passive defensive structure, then on the back of extended possession in the Storm’s half, the Dolphins took advantage to score through Kenny Bromwich. When watching the replay of this try, yes the gap appears between Hughes and Meaney, but look at the efforts of Katoa and Asofa-Solomona inside Hughes for the reason the gap was there. It doesn’t help that Hughes, Meaney and Warbrick play passive, but teammates inside and outside Hughes didn’t provide much support for their halfback trying to stop a damaging forward on the edge. Credit to the Red Fish for exploiting that channel even after losing Bostock from that flank so early.
Before this match, Howarth’s most minutes (65) came in his NRL debut last year in the Queensland Cup match. This season he’s played a total of 52 minutes in three appearances. Howarth gained 80 metres in his debut, in the 12th minute on a broken play, he almost equalled that total.
After making a line break down the left flank, his pass to Anderson was probably too early trying to draw in Redcliffe fullback Trai Fuller, but Anderson had enough skills to find Ryan Papenhuyzen in support, with Melbourne’s number one getting over the line in his return to the NRL. Long range tries seemingly out of nothing. Yeah that’s Melbourne in 2024.4
This match could best be described as loose. The Dolphins went close to scoring in the 18th minute, but were denied by the fingertips of Jake Averillo, that disappointment didn’t last long though, as Melbourne’s inability to complete tackles proved costly.5 There were multiple chances for Melbourne to end the play that saw Aitken score in the corner. It was a miraculous effort from the home team, but the root cause was Melbourne not completing tackles. It’s an attitude thing too when seeing forwards not helping out their teammates to ensure that the tackled player is taken to ground, especially at the end of a set.
The Dolphins 12–6 lead didn’t last too long though, with Hughes and Meaney combining to send Warbrick down the flank outside Farnworth, for Warbrick to find Wishart in support to score. Again a long range try catching the opposition out wide inside Melbourne’s half. The sustainability of this kind of attack might be questionable, but there’s just something fun about running rugby league of this nature, especially when Hughes is pulling the strings. Just pausing to recognise the ball-playing of Christian Welch in the lead up to the try. He copped it late from Tevita Pangai Junior, but crucially got the pass away to facilitate the shift to the right.
Straight after the try, on the back of one of the worst forward pass calls I’ve seen in a while, Redcliffe regained the lead. From the scrum win the Dolphins immediately shifted to their left and Melbourne simply didn’t number up in defence and went way too passive. It was a quality scrum play from a dangerous position, but c’mon man.
As Darren Lockyer said in commentary:
As soon as the Storm find points they seem to find an error and the Dolphins make them pay.
With no stoppages in play after the Dolphins scored for five minutes it was a case of who would crack first just out from half time. It would be the Red Fish with the Storm coming up with another Hughes special. Stemming from another great play from Welch in the middle with a late offload, Hughes sized up all the options in an instant, kicking for Warbrick unmarked on the wing. The kick was centimetre perfect and the bounce was fortunate, Hughes in support beating four players to score a great try for the halfback.
On the cusp of half time, Trent Loeiro was placed on report for a crusher tackle on Herbie Farnworth (for which he’ll cop a $3,000 fine), but Jamayne Isaako missed the penalty shot from 47m out to send the teams to the sheds level at 18–all.
Edging closer
With all six tries in the first half scored down the flanks and all of Melbourne’s from inside their own half, there needed to be some adjustment in the second half. Melbourne’s attack though kept finding time and space on the edges, the Howarth and Anderson combination looking very dangerous especially when Papenhuyzen and Hughes started chiming in on that side of the field.
The next try though would come from the boot of Hughes, this time kicking on the last tackle after a very probing set on the Dolphins line. Melbourne hadn’t had many opportunities this deep into attack and they made the most of it here to score the club’s 3000th NRL try.
Saltiness
As a Storm fan I’ve heard a lot of insults over the years, not that they are ever unique or particularly memorable. I swear though the saltiness that develops from some fanbases could be harvested and processed for sale.6 That salt comes on thick whenever Melbourne receive any line-ball decision, especially when they come in a bunch:
Melbourne’s successful captain’s challenge in the 47th minuteto claim obstruction to cancel out a knock on — dodgy, but technically correct.
The penalty for offside on the tackle TPJ laid on Loiero two plays later — 100% correct, he was clearly offside and was immediately called out by the referee. Did he listen and pull out? No.
The late tackle penalty against Kenny Bromwich for whacking Welch after he passed — clear and obvious.
That last penalty had Hughes approaching the referee, but he was given short shrift by the man with the whistle as Meaney added the two points.
Melbourne would extend their lead to 12 points not long after this spell of play. Again Hughes was the architect on the back of forcing an error on a kick from Fuller. Melbourne didn’t score straight from the scrum, but it was the very next play when Hughes sent Josh King through a yawning gap next to the posts. The score was King’s first this season and his fifth in 65 Storm appearances, great reward for hard work.
Nervousness
2024 has seen Melbourne win from behind as well as give up leads in the second half only to come back again. At 30–18 Melbourne shouldn’t be losing, but with 25 minutes remaining the trust just isn’t there right now.
That was especially true when Jamayne Isaako ran 95m to score, just beating Papenhuyzen to the line. Isaako might have ran 95m in about 12 seconds, but given the angle of his run, Paps probably covered at least 102m in the same time.7
The final 20 minutes with Redcliffe down 30–22 wasn’t fun. Sua Fa’alogo was sent on in place of Bronson Garlick which had the Storm shuffling roles. Wishart moved to hooker and Anderson came into the middle with Fa’alogo moving to the left wing. It was all a little messy, just like this week’s moment of zen:
Now I’m comfortable with this being “played at”, but umm, the chasers were in front of the kicker like Garlick was in the first half.
It was all hands on defence from Melbourne with the Red Fish coming hard. Jesse Bromwich would burn the Dolphins challenge on his own lost ball for no reward, Melbourne unable to cash in on the good fortune with a clear obstruction penalty awarded ending a chance to extend the lead.
The decisive moment of the match came in the 71st minute when Connelly Lemuelu was denied a try by the Bunker after cleanly catching a kick over Paps and reaching out to score under pressure from Eli Katoa. Pretty sure the example of no control will be this moment in the 2025 rules video.
Melbourne burnt their challenge trying to get some rest late in the match, to set some kind of defensive wall for the final push to the finish. The issue was that with the ball, Melbourne could hardly get out of their own half.
The final act of this match worth discussing is the penalty for obstruction in the in-goal area that stopped Fa’alogo running 110m to score. Now look, rugby league has some dumb rules. This is one of them. Firstly, Jessie Bromwich has no right be a defender given he was out of the play from where the kick was fielded and a good few metres away from a much faster player. Is he obstructed when there are three defenders in position who could attempt to stop Fa’alogo in the field of play? To be a meme about it, Jahrome Hughes can’t disappear in his own in-goal area when the player with the ball is also outside the field of play trying to get back into the field of play with the ball. This is one of those instances where the rule is interpreted in an illogical way that has fallen against Melbourne a number of times over the years. I hate it, but sadly it’s always been refereed this way. The simple fix is that you can’t be obstructed on kick returns (especially in the opposition’s in-goal area) unless the team with the ball is actively using NFL-style blocking patterns.8
In any event, the Dolphins took the two to bring the margin back to six points, leaving Melbourne with two minutes to defend. The herculean effort from Paps (and others) to stop Isaako grabbed all the headlines, but the scrambling defence in the final minute was heart attack stuff.
Post match quotes
Was a fairly balanced coach in the post match:
We had some chances to finish the game, but we didn’t quite.
We played some good footy, but the Dolphins are a team that don’t beat themselves, we knew it was going to be a tough game. We're happy with our result, but there's just some things throughout the 80 minutes that we haven't been consistent with, and while we got consistent with a couple of things today there were a couple of other things we were inconsistent at again. Most of it is around our defence. We are scoring plenty of points to win games, but we need to reduce the points getting scored against us.
It was nice to see Jahrome in the post match presser too, even if he was a little hard on himself, which did lead to some nice moments between the coach and our best player this season.
We just need to think about our footy a little bit more and situation that we’re in. [I was] really proud of our last couple of sets up there [in defence]. I thought that last ten minutes, we did some not so smart things, but defended really well. We just need to be more consistent.
Stat offloads
The Dolphins became the ninth team to lose their first two matches against Melbourne, and just the second to do it without visiting Victoria.
The Grant Anderson Experience: Something of a mixed bag from Anderson this week on the left flank. A try assist and a line break assist were some of the good, multiple missed tackles and errors the bad (albeit a couple were from bad passes). I think that Reimis Smith is probably the better option inside Xavier Coates in the best Storm team, but Anderson is doing his job at the moment, which is Kenough.
Was it worth it?
Watching rugby league live from inside a proper stadium is the optimum, followed by your own house, or one of a number of other places with adequate large television screens. However the sunk cost of being a fan of multiple sports9 is that sometimes you have less than ideal conditions to watch your favourite team.
Case in point was my location and view for this week’s match.
Can’t say I recommend watching rugby league on your phone while at a different sport, but that’s sometimes what the cruel schedule makers deem it to be. Hell, I’m sure there’ll be enough complaints about watching rugby league at this venue come Wednesday night.
As for the game, praise be to the football gods that the Red Fish play Freed From Desire after scoring and not the abomination to music that the Broncos play at Lang Park. Hearing that song four times is much less painful than Chelsea FUCKING Dagger.
7/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Another masterful performance from the Storm halfback and captain on the night. Everything that Melbourne do well in attack is usually through the hands and boot of Jahrome Hughes.
Thought Christian Welch was great in his first spell off the bench and deserving of a point this week. Same for tryscorer Will Warbrick who ate up the metres together with Jack Howarth. Both had a couple of errors, I’m sure Howarth hated losing the ball in a steal in the final minutes, but they were individually great.
A point also for Tyran Wishart who is just consistently playing his role at the moment, not putting in any poor performances. Was very close to giving Josh King a point for his valiant chase on Isaako alone, but like the chase he just missed out.
Round 16 points:
3 – Jahrome Hughes
2 – Will Warbrick
1 – Jack Howarth
1 – Christian Welch
1 – Tyran Wishart
Leaderboard:
21 – Jahrome Hughes
12 – Eliesa Katoa
8 – Xavier Coates, Harry Grant
6 – Ryan Papenhuyzen
5 – Cameron Munster, Tyran Wishart
4 – Grant Anderson
3 – Tui Kamikamica, Cameron Munster, Grant Anderson, Nick Meaney, Trent Loiero, Sualauvi Fa’alogo, Christian Welch
2 – Shawn Blore, Joe Chan, Josh King, Will Warbrick
1 – Jonah Pezet, Alec MacDonald, Reimis Smith, Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Jack Howarth
Around the grounds
Jersey Flegg Cup — Fiji Silktails 10–28 Melbourne Storm
On Saturday in Nadi, a first half double for Gabriel Satrick helped the Storm a 20–0 lead at halftime, with a double to Matthew Hill capping off a nice win over the hosts. The win keeps the juniors in touch with the finals positions heading into the run through to the end of the season. Melbourne’s next opponent is the Bulldogs as the curtain raiser before the NRL on Saturday afternoon.
Queensland Cup — Sunshine Coast Falcons 52–22 Western Clydesdales
A big win for the Falcons this week, thrashing the lowly Clydesdales at home. The birds scored nine tries to four, after leading 28–10 at half time. There was a try to AJ Gudgeon, while Young Tonumaipea, Lazarus Vaalepu and Chris Lewis all got game time.
The Falcons will be up against the Seagulls (Wynnum Manly version) next weekend, while the Tigers will be back in action against the Magpies.
Suncorp Super Netball — Sunshine Coast Lightning 71–66 Giants Netball
The Lightning got the job done against the last placed Giants on Sunday afternoon. In their final home game for the season, the girls maintained fourth on the ladder through strong defence and a dominant second quarter.
Next week the Lightning face off against the Mavericks at John Cain Arena while the NRL is on across the road, in another poorly scheduled event from this year’s fixture makers.
Next up
Round 17 vs Canberra Raiders – Saturday 29 June, 7:35pm @ AAMI Park
Following Origin at the MCG on Wednesday night, Melbourne entertain their AAMI Park nemesis Canberra. Sigh. What could possibly go wrong?
Preview post later in the week.
The NRL’s uniform policy needs to be overhauled. I nominate myself for the task.
Forcing a knock-on not picked up by the officials… including a sideline official who was right there.
I couldn’t believe this stat when I first saw it. NRL.com has Garlick passing the ball 72 times in the match, without moving the ball forward from the ruck. He would be pinged for one forward pass…which wasn’t.
I’m putting this in the footnotes because this is crazy — watch the incident in the 15th minute when Nick Meaney is ruled to have knocked-on gathering the ball after Trai Fuller lost a high ball backwards. Meaney has his left arm slapped by Mark Nicholls while simultaneously trying to pass the ball with his right hand. Nicholls comes into contact with the ball, batting the ball backwards into the in-goal area where Tyran Wishart forces the ball. This was called by the referee without going to the Bunker. Now call me crazy (because I am), but this looked a lot closer to a try than it first looked. Cameron Smith in commentary on Nine called it a big play by Nicholls…
Offloads were 17 for the Dolphins against 9 for Melbourne. That’s double their season average for the Red Fish.
I grew up in a suburb adjacent to a salt works. I went to their website while writing this line, so I’m finally up to speed on the ins and outs of salt refining.
Yes I did the rough measurements of the metres covered, what of it.
Compare this play to Jahrome Hughes being fouled trying to get out of the in-goal area in the first half but not receiving a penalty. Also, if Fa’alogo gives up on the play immediately after exiting the in-goal area would this have been a penalty? If Hughes is facing the field of play rather than watching the ball carrier, is this is penalty given he is now a “support player”? I could go on about this…
Dropping a [redacted] amount of money on sporting club season tickets and having to deal with clashes is not fun. Having to deal with flexible scheduling is even worse.