Game 702 – S27E17 Review
Game 702 – S27E17 Review
Melbourne Storm 16–6 Canberra Raiders
It was a bit of a slog in the wet, but eventually Melbourne had enough class to get past the Raiders at home.
Melbourne – 16 (King 37', Blore 46', Howarth 52' tries; Wishart 2/4 goals)
Canberra – 6 (Weekes 42' try; Rapana 1/1 goal)
Get your wet weather footy highlights here… there might be some filler though.
Close the roof
Rainy games. Melbourne don’t get to play many games at AAMI Park in proper rainy conditions, most of the matches that the Storm play in inclement weather happens in The Bad Place. But not this week. I had hoped this would just be a cold and moist one… until the rain set in during the prematch festivities. If only there was some kind of device that could have covered AAMI Park.
Trouble?
When it was rumoured and then confirmed that Ryan Papenhuyzen would be missing this match with a foot injury, and Harry Grant wouldn’t be backing up after Origin;1 the feeling that this was a trap game very much solidified in my head. Melbourne at home to the Raiders on a cold Saturday night. Professor Pigskin had this one lined up ready to go.
The only issue for Homer Simpson… well the Raiders of 2024 kinda suck.
From the first few minutes, the men in green white either couldn’t adapt to the conditions, or just wanted to prove why they are sitting in the bottom half of the ladder. Dropped balls and ill-discipline was the order of the night, although to be fair on the visitors, Melbourne were only marginally better.
The highlights of the first 30 odd minutes of this game:
Errors: Canberra 8 — Melbourne 6
Set restarts against: Canberra 5 — Melbourne 1
Penalties against: Canberra 32 — Melbourne 2
It was messy. Melbourne, well mostly Jahrome Hughes was trying some things, but Canberra’s defence kept the home team at bay. Will Warbrick (playing outside Jack Howarth) came close to scoring a couple of times (in the 8th minute and again in the 26th minute), and Sua Fa’alogo got the crowd up and about with his line break in the 12th minute. Grant Anderson, playing inside Xavier Coates, came up claiming a try in the 13th minute after kicking ahead for himself, but he was telling fibs and was found out by the officials.
Meanwhile Canberra were their own worst enemy with the ball, their structured plays weren’t threatening and any opportunities they created were either easily defended by the Storm, or ended with a whimper.
What this game needed was a first grade hooker who could choose the right moment to run from dummy half. Bronson Garlick finally put his hand up to be that guy in the 18th minute… I gave him a cheer when he actually went for a scoot from dummy half. That set up a final tackle play that almost had Howarth slide over, but lose the ball short of the line.
That second opportunity that came the way of Will Warbrick in the 26th minute led to the first controversial moment of the evening. Warbrick was put into touch and lost the ball trying to score under pressure from Albert Hopoate, but inside him who else but Jordan Rapana was fouling Fa’alogo. Referee Grant Atkins deferring to the Bunker to find Rapana at fault, but then failing to report and/or sin bin Rapana for the incident. Strange times.
Scoring a try: difficulty level — 8
We saw against the Warriors that not having the ball inside the opposition’s red zone makes it hard to win. In the first 30+ minutes of this match, the Raiders were tackled just twice inside Melbourne’s 20m zone. Melbourne though had plenty of tackles, but no penetration. It was clunky, especially going left and with Garlick hesitant to run from dummy half, it felt predictable. Give the ball to Hughes and hope he can conjure something seemed to be the cornerstone.
Finally though Canberra cracked and Melbourne scored. Elliott Whitehead was at fault for the visitors, rushing up out of the line, with Garlick’s simple pass across Christian Welch to Josh King putting the big man through the massive gap left by Whitehead. It was reward for hard work, but the simple nature of the try was something that felt missing from Melbourne’s clunky attack in the first half. In any event, King had his second try for the season and Melbourne looked okay for their 6–0 lead just out from half time.
What the hell was that?
On the field for the second half and Melbourne’s first set with the ball looked like they were ready to do the work needed to extend their lead… until Wishart’s kick was fielded by Raiders fullback Kaeo Weekes who burst through the Storm line between Wishart and Hughes. Nevermind, surely the players fresh from half time will be able to lay a hand on Weekes… No? Maybe Fa’alogo has the pace to chase him down or make him score out wide then… Oh he’s given up on the chase and Weekes has scored adjacent to the uprights. Level of ooof: big.3
Canberra were level and all of a sudden Melbourne’s first half dominance of possession and field position that didn’t translate into points was coming back to bite them.
Slopfest
Fortunately for Melbourne, Canberra soon reverted to type. Whitehead who was having a shocker lost the ball. Hopoate was penalised for a dangerous tackle which negated a zero tackle knock-on by Howarth. On the resulting set, Melbourne finally started playing straighter at the visitors and this had immediate success with Garlick putting Blore through another hole created next to Whitehead. Blore beating Strange to score his second try of the season.
Canberra were on tilt from that try onwards. They didn’t take possession of the ball before Melbourne scored again, as the Storm straightened their attack and looked to only move the ball through the hands after laying a platform in the middle. It was some semblance of wet weather football from Melbourne. Hughes controlling play putting Howarth in a nice little spot to score his first career try in the 52nd minute to take the score to 16–6.
But that was his last action for a bit,4 with Howarth heading off with an injury that will keep him out for a couple of weeks.
With a 10 point margin, this match devolved into, let’s be real, a slopfest. If the first 30 minutes were bad, the final 25+ minutes might have been worse. There was a definite focus from Melbourne to play more in the middle third of the field and just defend against a Raiders attack that wasn’t offering much with the ball.
Raiders debutant Jordan Martin concussed himself trying to tackle, ending his night after just five minutes on the field. Wishart was penalised for a late tackle that overturned dud play from the Raiders down their right flank, and Melbourne were denied a try to Warbrick when the Bunker ruled that Kane Bradley had knocked-on in a contest for the ball. It wasn’t pretty to watch with both teams making plenty of errors.
Melbourne had a chance to seal the victory in the 71st minute after Wishart bust through the Raiders and put a kick through to the left flank, but Xavier Coates couldn’t force the bouncing ball cleanly, ruled to have knocked-on and sadly, hurting himself in the process. Sigh. Coates will be out for another chunk of the season with a hamstring injury sustained on this run. I’ve seen some complaints that Melbourne shouldn’t have played Coates after Origin, to which I say get fucked.
In any event, that was the last real action of the match, the final few minutes saw Canberra’s ineffective attack hardly posing any real questions of Melbourne, with both teams making more errors.
Post match quotes
Was a pretty downbeat coach after the match following the injury to Coates:
There were some good parts to our game, but we just can’t seem to get that consistency in for 80 minutes. We’re a bit up and down and don’t seem to be learning, or take the learnings from what happened last week or whatever. We completed at something like 65% and you’re not going to win a whole heap of games unless you complete better than that. We just need to be patient and disciplined. Take the learnings and fix it up.
It has been a very disruptive season as far as injuries and people being out, so the guys have got to take a lot of credit for the resilience they have shown. I can't remember too many pretty wins this year, but they have just hung in there and got the job done. I am proud of that and I know the players are proud of that. It’s hard to believe where we are in the table, but we’ve just found a way.
There was some nice mirth when talking about the group of injured players taking over the coaches box and offering their suggestions.
Meanwhile Ricky Stuart was in max deflect mode trying to take the focus off his team:
We were on the wrong side of a guessing game again. They’re just guessing mate. Those six agains, they just guess. “I’ll give one again here, give one away there.”
Stat offloads
Tyran Wishart kicked the first goals of his NRL career, but his 50% conversion rate might see him having to do some extra work. His dad’s goalkicking rate was 64.78% in his 177 matches for the Steelers and Dragons.
The Panthers loss to the Cowboys puts Melbourne two games clear on top of the NRL ladder.
Melbourne have won 13 of 15 matches wearing their various Indigenous jersey designs.
Was it worth it?
The conditions didn’t help this week. 14,127 through the gates is the lowest Storm attendance at AAMI Park since June last year.5 Relatively speaking it wasn’t that cold, but I can understand why people stayed at home to watch on the box.6
It wasn’t a game with many highlights, instead there’s a few things that I’m sure the coaching staff will want to work on with bigger matches coming after the bye.
5/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Hard one to judge this week. Jahrome Hughes was probably Melbourne’s best again, definitely in attack, but it wasn’t his best for the season. I thought Bronson Garlick was better this week, and his two try assists attest to that.
Yes he made some errors, but big Nelson Asofa-Solomona is deserving of praise this week. 176 run metres with his usually high number of post contact metres helped to tire out the opposition in his 33 minutes on the park after starting the match. Throw in a couple of offloads and enough tackles gets big NAS a point.
Round 17 points:
1 – Bronson Garlick
1 – Jahrome Hughes
1 – Josh King
1 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona
Leaderboard:
22 – 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, Josh King
2 – Shawn Blore, Joe Chan, Will Warbrick, Nelson Asofa-Solomona
1 – Jonah Pezet, Alec MacDonald, Reimis Smith, Jack Howarth, Bronson Garlick
Around the grounds
Jersey Flegg Cup — Melbourne Storm 0–24 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Wasn’t a great afternoon for the Storm juniors at AAMI Park. They were only down 4–0 at half time, but couldn’t stop a rampaging Bulldogs line up from scoring four tries in the second half, while keeping the Storm scoreless. The loss sees the Storm drop to 10th on the ladder.
Queensland Cup — Wynnum Manly Seagulls 10–14 Sunshine Coast Falcons
A kick in the 77th minute to the left wing saw Thallon Peters grab the catch and dive over the line to score the match-winning try for the Falcons against the Seagulls. It was a tight match at Kougari Oval, with the Falcons scoring first through Chris Lewis. The Falcons would take an 8–6 lead into half time, but Fua Schwalger’s second try on debut put the home team on top until the big play late in the game to give the Falcons the win.
Queensland Cup — Souths Logan Magpies 27–26 Brisbane Tigers
A first half double for Coby Williamson had the Tigers up 20–12 at Davies Park, but the home team roared back in the second half with Harry Walters scoring a hat trick. His third levelled the scores at 26–all, setting the stage for Brandon Finnegan to kick the field goal to win the match. Alec MacDonald got back on the paddock for the Tigers in his first match since his injury a few weeks ago, meaning he should be ready to go for the Storm either this week or after the bye.
NSW Cup — North Sydney Bears 18–10 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Reimis Smith finally made his return after a few weeks on the sidelines, scoring the only try of the second half in his first ever match for the North Sydney Bears. It was 10–all at half time, with the Bears maintaining their grip on first place on the ladder with the win over the Bulldogs. Dean Ieremia and Tepai Moeroa also getting match time this weekend at North Sydney Oval.
Suncorp Super Netball — Melbourne Mavericks 72–71 Sunshine Coast Lightning
In Glenorchy,7 the Mavericks pulled level with the Lightning on 20 competition points for the season, with the Storm Group Girls just ahead on percentage. It was a tough loss for the Lightning with the unfavoured Mavericks defeating the Lightning by one goal for the second time this season. Steph Fretwell had a chance to win the match with a shot in the final seconds, but instead of taking the easier shot at goal to send the match to extra time, she opted for the attempt at a super shot only to come up short as time expired.
Next up
Round 18 vs Wests Tigers – Saturday 6 July, 5:30pm @ Leichhardt Oval
More injuries to deal with for Melbourne ahead of the trip to the venue with the club’s worst winning percentage (minimum 10 matches played). The Tigers will be off shorter rest after their drubbing in the rain at the SFS on Sunday night.
Preview post later in the week.
41 minutes, 3 runs for 13 metres, 19 tackles at 76%; Queensland 18 points, NSW 16 points while he was on the field; and a massive cut on his forehead.
Plus the one that Atkins missed live in the 30st minute when Elliott Whitehead put Shawn Blore in a crusher tackle to which the match review graded as a grade one dangerous contact.
Weekes even had time to make sure no one was getting close with a sneaky look at the video screen.
He would return later on to replace another injured Storm player…
Across the way at the MCG, Geelong and Essendon also had a smaller than expected attendance of 54,698. Your correspondent attended both to bump up the numbers.
Although with that commentary team, it’s reason enough to leave the house and/or mute your television.
Not John Cain Arena, oops. They hosted the Harlem Globetrotters instead on Saturday night.