Game 703 – S27E18 Review

Wests Tigers 28–40 Melbourne Storm

Jul 07, 2024

Scrappy, but high-scoring. A confusing match between first and last goes Melbourne’s way. Time for a reset though with the bye coming up.

Wests Tigers – 28 (Staines 12', 71', Pole 19', Galvin 60', Bula 80' tries; Koroisau 4/5 goals)

Melbourne – 40 (Fa’alogo 55', 74', Katoa 15', Papenhuyzen 28', Warbrick 31', Anderson 47', Wishart 69' tries; Wishart 6/8 goals)

When there’s 12 tries in the match it makes the highlights package easy for the video editors.

Scouting mission: Stefano Uoikamanu

If the media are to be believed1 the Storm are all in on trying to sign Stefano Uoikamanu from the Tigers. Given that he would command many dollars to stop from signing with clubs that have space under their salary cup, I can’t see how Melbourne could pull this signing off, but strange things do happen in rugby league. I’d like to think the Storm coaching staff might have been looking at his game closely in opposition this week, which seemed to be especially true of a former Storm player who lined up for the Tigers…

Oh hi Justin Olam

Wearing the 22 jersey after initially being named as a reserve as he returned from injury, Olam came up against Jack Howarth and Will Warbrick. Olam looks weird in Tigers colours. He played like he had a point to prove, but in typical Olam fashion, he bludgeoned the point instead of doing the precise things necessary to help his team. It was fascinating to watch him play against Melbourne though.

Start the way you want to play

Giving away penalties on the opening set isn’t great. It put the home team on the front foot early, with their attacking set only failing to score points when John Bateman was tackled on the fifth tackle to die with the ball short of the line. It was a statement from the Tigers, and it was a little disconcerting to see how much ground they gained against the Melbourne defence. Wests would go close to scoring on their second attacking set a few minutes later, with Lachlan Galvin looking dangerous down their left edge. A grubber kick from the boot of Api Koroisau almost resulted in a try, but for the bounce of the Steeden which evaded the chasers and Ryan Papenhuyzen, fortuitously ending up in the hands of Grant Anderson who was able to get the ball back into the field of play.

It was very much uphill skiing for Melbourne in the first five minutes until a wonder offload from Howarth after a big run at Uoikamanu and Olam. His ball for Eli Katoa had the Storm in the Tigers half and on the fifth tackle play madness ensured. I tried to count how many pairs of hands this play went through and lost count at around a dozen. There were three kicks in the sequence which lasted over 40 seconds, with the final kick from Jahrome Hughes bobbled backwards by Adam Doueihi. Melbourne playing clunky, disjointed ad lib football: big 2024 areas.

After their bright start with the ball, errors crept into the Tigers game gifting Melbourne field position, but points weren’t coming for the Storm. Paps would go close in the ninth minute after a weaving run past four defenders had him reaching out for the line, only for him to lose the ball just short of scoring.

On the back of another soft piggyback penalty, the Tigers were back in the redzone and this time would open the scoring through Charlie Staines. The Tigers right winger on the end of what was a fairly basic switch from the middle of the field through the hands of Koroisau, Aidan Sezer and Jahream Bula. While it was a nice play from Koroisau especially, that was pretty soft defence from Melbourne and it wasn’t helped when Anderson and Kane Bradley went passive in the face of speed in motion.

Fortunately for Melbourne, the Storm weren’t behind for long. An attacking set after an error resulted in a goal line drop out,2 then Hughes put Katoa though a gap between Samuela Fainu and Utoikamanu to score almost untouched. The way that Hughes pulled apart the Tigers line was masterful. Fainu was baffled, Galvin looked like he was shitting bricks and Olam looked like he wanted no part of trying to defend the outside runners. The lack of effort and the missed tackle from Utoikamanu though…

Is bad football contagious?

Anecdotally, Melbourne seem to struggle sometimes with opponents in the lower reaches of the NRL ladder. As Bellyache has often put it, it comes down to attitude and effort. It’s a case of doing the little things right and making sure you follow and trust the process. Finding touch from a penalty kick, well that’s one of those little things you must get right. This week’s offender is Tyran Wishart. He’s lucky the forecast low temperatures are not as low as this week was, should he need to do laps of Gosch’s Paddock as penance. Second offender is Josh King for giving away a set restart on the last tackle. Given his solid play usually, the fact he played all 80 minutes of this match, and is a favourite of the coach, a stern warning will be sufficient.

Those two fundamental errors setting up field position for Koroisau to go to work again against a retreating Storm line to send Victorian junior Fonua Pole past a pretty poor effort to tackle from Katoa. It was a pretty poor few minutes from Melbourne with the result being a Tigers 12–6 lead after 20 minutes played. That lead could have been greater but for the efforts of Papenhuyzen and Bradley, who combined in a last-ditch effort to stop Doueihi in the 24th minute, after the Tigers centre found open space on a broken play.

Line breaks

How good is seeing rugby league players carrying the ball in open space. It’s almost like seeing a lunar eclipse. There’s the initial wow moment when the player gets through the line, the excitement of the crowd grows in anticipation of what’s about to happen next. When Wishy got through the line in the 27th minute coming off Melbourne’s line, the roar of the crowd could be heard from miles away. He breezed past Utoikamanu in the left channel, 3 engaged the fullback and sent Anderson down the flank at speed. Bula had enough pace to catch Anderson over 20m, with Ando tackled before he could do something silly on what was just the second tackle. After a set restart, Rome and Paps set up a similar play to the one that Paps almost scored on earlier in the match, the fullback stepping around Olam and through Sezer to score.

In my notes watching this match I paid special attention to the work of Paps in attack both with and without the ball. Under an injury cloud needing injections into a foot injury, I wondered if they might have given him another week on the sidelines. Hearing him explain the process on what he’s going through on their podcast this week definitely got me thinking about the things players go through to get on the field each week, and their desire to play through the pain.4

Watching his play closely, Paps is an elite true fullback. As much as Sua Fa’alogo is the FNT, I would much prefer to see Ryan Papenhuyzen in the number one jersey for the next decade for the Storm. He tries things that can work. He supports players in his positioning the same way that Billy Slater did. His effort is almost unmatched. I think Storm fans might need to go back and watch Paps in 2020 through to before his injury in 2022 just to remember how great he is. The same way we never wanted to see Slater, Smith and Cronk play against Melbourne, it applies equally to Paps.5

Melbourne would score back-to-back tries, going the length of the field in just five plays. Hughes created his own line break in the right channel, turning Olam inside-out, breaking tackles and finally passing to Will Warbrick to score. Brilliance from Hughes yet again, as he maintains the high standards he’s been showing the past month or so.

More injuries

Sigh. Nelson Asofa-Solomona left this match after 20 minutes with some kind of hamstring injury. That’s not ideal. Just before half time, Bronson Garlick would also leave the field and not return due to back spasm.

Those minutes before half time following Warbrick’s try saw the Tigers almost hit back immediately down their left flank, only for Paps to show up big in defence to stop Solomona Faataape short of the line. Then there was a rare mistake from Josh King. It meant that Melbourne’s lead at the half was a pretty precarious 16–12.

The Melbourne Shuffle

Garlick’s departure saw Wishart move to dummy half, Fa’alogo to the left wing outside Bradley and Anderson into more of a playmaking/running role. A Hughes kick resulting in a near chance for Brick and Paps down the right edge, then with Melbourne scrambling in defence, a Tigers error set Melbourne up with another chance to go on the attack.

Ahh professional fouls and sin bins. When the NRL changed the rule to protect attacking players going for the ball, I think situations like what got Faataape in trouble were bound to happen. That action was as clear as a foul as it can be. The decision not to award a penalty try is interesting, but I think the process as it was explained by the Bunker was exactly how they should be interpreting that kind of action.

On the power play, Melbourne didn’t take long to find the gap in the Tigers line. It was another great play from Hughes through King to find Anderson with the offload. Melbourne would almost waste the rest of the man advantage, but did come up with a second try just before Faataape returned from the naughty corner. In the end of was an easy try to Fa’alogo coming from a deft little kick from Paps out to the left wing.

Eking out a win

Up 28–12 it would have been nice if Melbourne were able to shut this match down and not concede more points. Alas it wasn’t to be, with the Tigers again exposing Melbourne’s right edge as they moved the ball to their left through Koroisau and Sezer to send Galvin through and over the line. With 20 minutes left, this match was something of a shootout, but at the same time felt scrappy.

Between the 60th and 70th minutes, Melbourne tried a crash play on the last through Alec MacDonald without success, then were denied a try to Fa’alogo who had collected a bouncing ball at midfield only to have the play denied for a touch on the Chin’s fingers. The very next play Utoikamanu lost the ball cold, only to have the Bunker overturn it to be a strip. Thankfully that didn’t cost Melbourne on the scoreboard with the Tigers coming up with an error when Paps kept out Doueihi in the corner.

That defensive effort turned into points for Melbourne to seal the match with just over ten minutes to go. Wishy scoring from dummy half with another show-and-go to crash over the line for his eighth try of the season.

Scratch that about sealing the match — the Tigers got the ball from the kickoff and scored straight away through Staines. Again passive defence from Bradley and Fa’alogo not helping things on that flank.

Fa’alogo would make up for his defensive frailty though to score his second try of the night and finally put the result of this game to bed. That it came from a midfield scrum win was beautiful.

This try shouldn’t be scored. Wishart collects the ball at the back of the scrum, avoids Anderson and gives it to Fa’alogo 40m from the line. A simple missed tackle from Heath Mason unlocked the Tigers line with ease, but there’s nothing other than pace and evasion skills at work here. It was still lovely to watch from Fa’alogo.

There was a few minutes of junk time after this. Wishart took the two from a penalty against Koroisau that saw the hooker put on report and charged for dangerous contact against Hughes, and the Tigers scored through Bula in the final minute to displease Bellyache with Melbourne conceding 28 points.

Post match quotes

It was a circumspect coach this week:

I was pretty happy with our attack and the points we score, but a bit disappointed with the points we let in, but having said that we ended up with only one guy on the bench at the end, so there was a lot of moving around. There were a few things there that tested us out.
They were really spirited in the way they played, they have got some really good players there with Api leading them around and some real good young blokes as well, so I think they are going to be a real force to be reckoned with in a couple of years time.
We were glad to get the win, but we’d like to see our points against a little less.

Bellyache also had some nice words about Wishy, Rome, Paps and Sua.

Stat offloads

Melbourne’s 40 points was the most they’ve scored in a match at Leichhardt Oval — the Storm’s previous best was a 30–14 win in 2005.
Fox Sports Lab has Jahrome Hughes on 19 try assists in 13 matches for the 2024 season. He was credited with a career high 23 try assists in both 2023 (22 matches) and 2021 (24 matches).
Melbourne have now won seven straight matches against the Tigers, the last time the Tigers won was in 2018 at Mt Smart Stadium.
Ryan Papenhuzyen’s 58th career try in his 82nd appearance takes him level with Aaron Moule in 13th place for Storm tries, he’s now two tries clear of Cameron Munster and four clear of Jahrome Hughes.

Was it worth it?

Again I was at the wrong sport during this match, which gave me the chance to take this photo and compare it to the shot taken by the Getty Images contributor:

Geelong vs Hawthorn at ~~GMHBA Stadium~~ Kardinia Park.

Why is the field so dark at the Lilyfield Rectangle? Maybe the allocated money also needs to be spent on better sports lighting to increase the lux. To be fair, it’s the same deal at a few of the other Sydney suburban shitholes.

I read that there’s reports that stuff were thrown at Tyran Wishart by some of the 10,311 fans at Leichhardt Oval. Sigh. Don’t throw stuff at the footy. Don’t be a dickhead.

Anyway, Geelong beat #AlwaysHated6 and the Storm won. A reasonable Saturday evening.7

6/10

Storm Machine Player of the Year

A spread of points this week. Josh King (80 minutes, 122 run metres, 30 tackles) was great in the middle, and I thought Christian Welch off the bench had two great spells in what was an injury-hit forward pack.

Ryan Papenhuyzen and Tyran Wishart were great in their roles too. Again, Melbourne don’t win unless Hughes plays the way he’s been lately.

Honourable mentions to Grant Anderson, who just keeps on keeping on in that left centre role, then moving further infield as needed when Garlick went off. A try this week was well deserved.

Round 18 points:

2 – Jahrome Hughes
2 – Ryan Papenhuyzen
1 – Josh King
1 – Christian Welch
1 – Tyran Wishart

Leaderboard:

24 – Jahrome Hughes
12 – Eliesa Katoa
8 – Xavier Coates, Harry Grant, Ryan Papenhuyzen
6 – Tyran Wishart
5 – Cameron Munster
4 – Grant Anderson, Christian Welch, Josh King
3 – Tui Kamikamica, Cameron Munster, Grant Anderson, Nick Meaney, Trent Loiero, Sualauvi Fa’alogo
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 — Manly Warringah Sea Eagles 20–16 Melbourne Storm

Goal kicking won the day for the home team at Brookvale Oval, with the Storm falling short despite scoring one more try than the home team. Manly scored in the opening minute, and would take a 18–8 lead into half time. Two tries from Matthew Hill in the second half closed the margin, but his second try was too late to make a difference to the final result.

Queensland Cup — Sunshine Coast Falcons 10–12 Ipswich Jets

An embarrassing loss for the Falcons against the Jets. New Ipswich coach Tye Ingebrigtsen getting his first win in charge of the club after replacing former Storm player Ben Cross who was sacked back in May. Previously, the Jets only win since 2022 was against the Clydesdales back in round 2 this season.

The Jets held out the Falcons until the 66th minute, and Cody Hunter had a chance to level the scores in the 72nd minute after Cruz Lasike scored a try, but his kick missed.

Queensland Cup — Brisbane Tigers 26–40 Redcliffe Dolphins

Similar to the Storm’s match against the Tigers, ~~Easts~~ Brisbane Tigers were involved in a bit of a shootout against the Dolphins, with the Tigers playing the role of the Wests Tigers, while the Dolphins played the role of the Storm. Confused? The Tigers scored first, then fell behind to be down 18–12 at half time. The Dolphins extended their lead to a match-winning advantage with the Tigers scoring three tries in the second half to reduce the final margin to 14 points.

NSW Cup — North Sydney Bears 28–10 Blacktown Workers Sea Eagles

Joe Chan scored the opening try for the Bears, with Dean Ieremia, Ativalu Lisati, Reimis Smith and Tepai Moeroa all turning out for the home team in their big win against their rivals ~~Manly~~ Blacktown. It was the Allan Fitzgibbon show for the Bears, with the winger scoring four tries, helping Norths extend their half time lead from 14–0.

Suncorp Super Netball — Queensland Firebirds 67–83 Sunshine Coast Lightning

The Lightning led all night against their Queensland rivals, with a big second quarter setting up the win. Their fourth place maintained for another week, the Lightning either need to beat the Thunderbirds in Adelaide to make the finals, or lose a close match and hope that the third-placed West Coast Fever defeat the fifth-played Melbourne Mavericks in Perth. The Fever will have it all to play for with the top three teams only separated by percentage going into the final round of the season after the Vixens lost to the Fever in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon.

Next up

Round 19 — Bye
Round 20 vs Sydney – Saturday 20 July, 7:30pm @ AAMI Park

Melbourne’s last bye of the year has come at a good time for a reset. By the sounds of things a lot of the players are getting out of ~~the cold~~ Melbourne this week for adventures elsewhere. Hopefully that means minds and bodies will be focused on the run to the finals and September adventures upon their return to Swan Street.

I do have another bye week special which will run later this week, it’s something that I cut from a recent review and expanded on since.

Spoiler alert: I ran the numbers. Oops.