Game 713 – S27E30 Review
Melbourne Storm 48–18 Sydney Roosters
Melbourne led brilliantly by Jahrome Hughes, progress through to an 11th NRL Grand Final after a messy, dramatic and tense night at AAMI Park.
Melbourne – 48 (Hughes 26', 39', 53', Papenhuyzen 13', 64', Munster 75', 80', Howarth 31' tries; Meaney 6/7, Grant 1/1, Wishart 1/1 goals)
Sydney – 18 (Tupou 9', May 47', Butcher 49' tries; Sua’ali’i 3/4 goals)
A second half to remember for a dominant Melbourne Storm.
Oh Nelson
From the preview:
I know that Melbourne need to keep 13 on the field against a Roosters team that averaged 30 points per game in the regular season.
Well that lasted one tackle.
Was it a sin bin? Yeah, that’s a sin bin. Was it a send off? Hmm, probably not. Is it worth a grade three careless high tackle charge? Given the other tackles this year, I’m going to say probably not. Did General Bias charge this as a grade three to force this case to be decided by NRL Judiciary forcing Melbourne to try and get it downgraded two levels rather than one? Yes, most definitely. Sigh.
As a Storm fan you only have to look at this incident in one way — if that was Victor Radley or Jared Waerea-Hargreaves making that attempt to tackle and their chest knocking out a Storm player on the first tackle of the match, would you be baying for blood?
I suspect that the fair result would be a grade two charge and with Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s record, that still equals a three match suspension with an early plea. Melbourne can try and get Nick Ghabar to argue the case for a grade one, but I just can’t see it working, despite there being plenty of precedents to use from this season. Let’s hope that he can use the Pacific Championship and NRL Allstars Match to alleviate the pain from a Melbourne perspective.1
Disjointed
On the penalty kill, Melbourne had a couple of 50:50 calls go against them. Waerea-Hargreaves lost the ball, but received a penalty; Angus Crichton and Jahrome Hughes came together and Joseph Sua’ali’i took the two points on offer.
Melbourne’s first touch of the ball in the sixth minute saw Xavier Coates upended and receiving no penalty from the referee, while at the end of the Storm’s second set in possession Jahrome Hughes also received no help after being decked after kicking.
Melbourne’s 12-man defensive line struggled to stop a rampant Roosters set after they spread the ball early. Replacement Roosters halfback Sandon Smith passing out to Sua’ali’i whose borderline pass found Daniel Tupou to score. While Melbourne’s attitude and effort was good in defense, the extra numbers proved too big an issue.
No panic
Down 6–0, but with NAS back on the field you could feel Melbourne’s intensity lift. There was no sign of panic and the Storm were assisted when the Roosters penalty merchants got to work. Radley’s hip drop tackle must have been awfully close to a sin bin,2 but a couple of set restarts extended Melbourne’s red zone possession until the Storm spotted Crichton’s poor defence with Hughes sending Ryan Papenhuyzen through the line to score. It was simple rugby league from Melbourne, but the structures when the Storm move the ball to the right edge have been great all season.
Exploding
Level on the scoreboard, Melbourne were starting to get on top. Munster and Hughes were working over the Roosters and the Storm forwards were backing them up in defence. It was beautiful rugby league against a tiring defensive line that saw Hughes cross for Melbourne’s second try. Paps used his speed to get around defenders in the right channel, his pass inside to Nick Meaney beat Crichton again with the centre’s final pass to Hughes picking apart the defence with ease.
Then this happened:
I can’t imagine how much pain Paps is in at the moment. His tolerance levels for it must be high. His pass to Jack Howarth was perfectly timed and in a manner of minutes Melbourne had gone from scores level to a 10–point lead.
Melbourne’s pressure was too much for the visitors. An attacking set looked to have been heading nowhere though after multiple dummy half runs, but Hughes put the Storm on his back, again targeting Crichton and Luke Keary in defence to crash through and score just before half time. A half time lead of 22–6 was just reward for Melbourne’s work in the first half.3
Five bad minutes
Coming back from the break, Melbourne added a couple of points from an escort penalty, but what followed can only be described as five bad minutes. With a three converted try lead, Melbourne’s advantage was cut to just six points. The visitors received a last tackle set restart for reasons, then capitalised on a couple of soft tackles in the middle of the park which saw Terrell May score under the posts.
That try gave them a sniff. The set after points looked to be going nowhere for the Roosters, until Keary’s bomb was fumbled by Papenhuyzen for Nat Butcher to pounce. Melbourne all of a sudden looked wobbly. But, thankfully, panic did not set in for the Storm.
All tries lead to Rome
Big moments, big players. Hughes kick to the right flank wasn’t fielded safely by the visitors and Melbourne pounced. Did the Chin get a touch and knock the ball forward? Yeah probably. Did Josh King do the right thing and take a tackle with a quick play-the-ball for Melbourne to score on the next play? You bet your arse they did. Hughes took the ball to score his second hat-trick in a month.4
With over 20 minutes remaining, this match was far from done with Melbourne’s lead at 12 points.5 A couple of errors from Melbourne did give the Roosters some field position, but the defence stuck solid. That attitude and effort forced an error from the Roosters at midfield and the Storm spine went to work. Hughes, Grant, Papenhuyzen. Try Melbourne. The behind the sticks view of the second Paps try showed how Grant picked apart the defence and Paps just had to fall over the line to score. 15 minutes remained, but only Melbourne were going to win from 18 points up, especially with the Roosters continual errors with the ball.
Both teams were guilty of a few errors in the final ten minutes, but eventually Melbourne’s class shone through. After his podcast pals got the jump in their individual try-scoring battle, Munster powered over for his first try with five minutes to go, his second coming in the final minute to send the home fans home extremely happy.
Worringly Nick Meaney didn’t finish the match after picking up a leg injury. Hopefully he’ll be fine after undergoing a knee stability test on field, although it was reported to just be a calf issue.
Stat offloads
48 points is Melbourne’s highest score in finals.
Nick Meaney’s sixth goal brought up 600 points in Melbourne Storm colours, the fifth player to reach that mark. Meaney now has 230 points this season, trailing only Matt Geyer’s club record of 242 in 1999.
With his two tries, Ryan Papenhuyzen (62) overtook Ryan Hoffman (61) to jump into tenth place on Melbourne’s all-time try-scorer list.
Harry Grant kicked his first career goal in his 100th NRL appearance.
Was it worth it?
Did my anxiety levels peak at new highs on Friday night? Yes.
Does Melbourne qualifying for another NRL Grand Final fill me with joy? Yes
Did my sports betting account also appreciate this optimistic bet placed in March? Also yes.
The fugue state that I entered into during the qualifying final returned to some extent during this match, but the spell was broken with every error and missed connection.
But Melbourne held off the Roosters, especially after recovering from the sin bin and conceding in the first ten minutes. The tries scored before half time and those after the Roosters came within six points were cathartic. Some of the loudest roars I’ve heard at AAMI Park.
9/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Big games from the big players for Melbourne. The spine players all had great games. Jahrome Hughes continues to shine each and every week; while this week Cam Munster (when he knew what he was doing), Harry Grant and Ryan Papenhuyzen all did their roles superbly well, even if there were a couple of blips. I thought Trent Loiero’s 60 minutes in the middle of the field were worthy of praise. He might not have scored a try this season, but his transformation into a more than solid middle forward is complete.
Honourable mentions to Jack Howarth for his try to finish the moment of the match, and the bash-brothers out wide who just keep on doing their part each and every match. While this week’s match might not have had the perfection of a fortnight ago, it was a full team effort.
Preliminary final points:
3 – Jahrome Hughes
2 – Cameron Munster
1 – Ryan Papenhuyzen
1 – Harry Grant
1 – Trent Loiero
Leaderboard:
35 – Jahrome Hughes
20 – Harry Grant
16 – Eliesa Katoa
12 – Tyran Wishart
10 – Cameron Munster
9 – Ryan Papenhuyzen,
8 – Xavier Coates, Josh King, Trent Loiero
7 – Will Warbrick
6 – Grant Anderson, Jack Howarth, Christian Welch
5 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona
4 – Shawn Blore, Tui Kamikamica, Sualauvi Fa’alogo
3 – Nick Meaney, Joe Chan
2 – Alec MacDonald
1 – Jonah Pezet, Reimis Smith, Bronson Garlick, Lazarus Vaalepu
Around the grounds
NSW Cup Grand Final — North Sydney Bears 22–28 Newtown Jets
With six Storm players in action for the Bears, there was a bit of interest this year in the NSW Cup Grand Final on Sunday afternoon.
After falling behind early, Bronson Garlick scored the Bears first try, while Joe Chan set up a great try for Sua Fa’alogo to level the scores just before half time. But the Jets would lead at half time, capitalising on a Fa’alogo error.
From 16–10 down at half time, the Bears levelled things up via a try to Allan Fitzgibbon, but it was a back and forth match full of points.
In the end the Bears couldn’t score one last try in a frantic final five minutes to force the match into extra time.
Next up
Grand Final vs Penrith Panthers
– Sunday 6 October 2024, 7:30pm @ Accor Stadium
It was always going to be Penrith. Cronulla huffed and puffled and finally scored a try after almost 300 minutes of failure against the Panthers. But that was about all they could muster, not even able to try and goad Penrith into anything remotely fun, so the reigning premiers have no concerns ahead of the Grand Final and will still look ominous in pink.
It was interesting to see Cleary’s whine about their disallowed try during their win. Singling out the Bunker official by name for “not understanding what we’re trying to do.” Perhaps they understood precisely what the blocking play was all about.
Preview post on Thursday before I head up to The Bad Place on the weekend.
#FreeNelson and all that jazz, but you’ve got to be realistic.
Paul Vautin’s commentary was cringe-worthy too.
My moment of zen this week: Shawn Blore being the lone Storm player running back to his position to get ready for a kick off before the half time siren, only to be called back to the middle because the siren was about to sound. He was so focused in the moment and you love to see it.
Again breezing past Angus Crichton in defence. You just know that was on Melbourne’s tip sheet.
A 13 point lead might have been fun, but perhaps I was calling for that a little too soon in the 61st minute.