Game 715 – S28E01 Review
Melbourne Storm 56–18 Parramatta Eels
A round one feast as the Eels were sliced, diced and fried by half time at AAMI Park. Melbourne Storm open their 2025 season in the same way they finished the 2024 regular season by putting 50 past inferior opposition.
Melbourne – 56 (Papenhuyzen 6', 40', Coates 22', 27', King 12', Katoa 24', Grant 31', Meaney 35', Warbrick 56', Hughes 58' tries; Meaney 8/10 goals)
Parramatta – 18 (Tago 38', Penisini 68', Iongi 77' tries; Lomax 3/3 goals)
Eight first half tries, a couple more in an extended junk time. Just your average day at AAMI Park.
Ahhh, it burns
These teams were the last to start their 2025 campaigns and it looked like the Melbourne players had watched everyone else run around and wanted to make a statement. Especially Cameron Munster. He was on. The Storm worked over Parramatta early, putting the visitors on the back foot. Only a Munster forward pass paused Melbourne’s attack.
It wasn’t long though and Melbourne crossed for their first try of the season. There was a smidgen of luck in it when Ryan Papenhuyzen was clear through stepping past Kelma Tuilagi, only for his pass to Shawn Blore to ricochet back to him to score. Following points Melbourne were able to withstand a Parramatta set on their line, Jack Howarth successfully defusing a kick into the sunshine.
On the back of a penalty, the Storm marched back into the Parramatta 20m zone and Munster laid a try on a platter for Josh King. Melbourne had shifted their attack to focus on the left edge, but when Munster steered the Storm back to the posts, King was through untouched. Melbourne’s attack and structure looked on song, with the commentators waxing lyrical about the clinical nature and “consistent intensity.”
Just trailing the clock after 13 minutes, Melbourne’s next possession saw Xavier Coates taking a big run on a kick return down the right wing. Did he just want a stint on the shady side of the field? The lead should have been extended even further, but Paps got a little selfish in not passing to an unmarked Munster to score, but it didn’t matter much.
Introduction of Alec MacDonald straightened Melbourne’s running in the middle, with Munster taking advantage of the space afforded to him, placing a pin point kick to the sunshine that had Coates fly and score the try just inside the dead ball line.
From the kickoff, Melbourne went on the attack down the left edge, before Munster carried the ball sideways across the middle of the park, linking up with Eli Katoa, the edge forward finding a hole, beating tackle to reach out and score. It was brilliant from Munster and Katoa, the damaging forward beating players in a 50m spectacular run to the line.
In the blink of an eye, Melbourne were ahead of the clock, on the fourth tackle off the kick off, Melbourne spread the ball left through Munster and Paps to send Howarth into the clear down the sideline. Howarth able to just find the right pass to find Coates with the speculator pass inside for his second of the afternoon.
At 28–0 the Storm looked to be in the mood to inflict pain. Melbourne’s backs created so much space on the back of hard running from the middle forwards, Jahrome Hughes and Munster linking up to send Nick Meaney through the line, the centre throwing it back inside for the Harry Grant to score.1
Melbourne had blown the Eels away in the space of 30 minutes to kill off the contest, beating the clock and the temperature.
A couple of minutes later, on the back of an error from Meaney, Parra had their best field position in about 20 minutes, but they came up with a poor play that saw a pass go to ground only for Meaney to make amends and run 85m to score to bring up 40 points with five minutes still to go before the half time break. It was party time at AAMI Park.
Tired of scoring tries, Melbourne let Parramatta get off the mark in the shadows of half time, the visitors kicking across into the sunshine for Jake Tago to get above a passive Jack Howarth to score. Howarth will be disappointed a little, as will his teammates who didn’t communicate well.
Unperturbed, Melbourne packed down a scrum in the final minute of the half after a Parra error from the kick off.
🚨 SET PLAY SCRUM TRY ALERT 🚨
How good. Parra never saw Paps coming. It was the exclamation mark to end the first half. As the fans on the eastern side headed for the shade, Melbourne headed to the sheds up 46–6.
Junk time
After the fireworks of the first half, the second half started in a more subdued manner. Parramatta got the ball in great field position, only for Munster to steal the Steeden. The visitors couldn’t capitalise on another good set in great field position, or the set starting 10m out after a line drop-out went out over the sideline.
Down the other end, Parra stopped Coates from scoring in his corner, with Jake Tago keeping him from flying in his usual style. Coates flew high for a Munster kick a few minutes later, but couldn’t come down cleanly with the ball.
Turning defence into attack, Melbourne brought up the half century when Will Warbrick intercepted a pass to run 95m to score. The winger celebrating his 50th match in style.
On the next set, Melbourne attacked down the left channel with Shawn Blore getting an offload around the back of the defender, the ball finding Howarth with space to position a pass to Jahrome Hughes to score under the posts. The halfback’s work for the day done, getting an early mark after 60 minutes. Grant would follow him off in the final minutes, Tyran Wishart doing his best to cover as many positions as possible.
The rest of the game was pretty trash, Parra scored twice, the clouds finally blew in and Melbourne started the 2025 season where the 2024 regular season ended — on top of the ladder and scoring 50+ points.
Stat offloads
This was the fourth time Melbourne had scored 40 or more points in the first half with the previous occasions being the 70–10 at the MCG, the 58–12 win over the Cowboys in 2007, and the 66–16 win over the Tigers at the Sunshine Coast in 2021.
The most points scored by a team in the first half during the NRL-era is 48 by the Knights in 2003 against the Cowboys.
The 74 points scored by both teams equalled the highest scoring round 1 NRL-era match when the Bulldogs defeated the Dragons 46–28.
Melbourne scored 50+ points for the 36th time, and have now scored 50+ in 21 out of 28 seasons.2
With his two tries, Ryan Papenhuyzen has entered the club’s top ten tryscorers with 64, going past Steven Bell. Next up to go past is Marcus Bai.
With 23,369 through the gates at AAMI Park, it marked Melbourne’s largest attendance for a round 1 home fixture.3
Lazarus Vaalepu was charged with a grade 1 careless high tackle offence on Matt Doorey, entering a guilty plea for the incident to cop a $1,000 fine.
Was it worth it?
AAMI Park is many fun things, but baking in the heat isn’t one of them. It was too bloody hot sitting in the sun.
Notwithstanding the heat, the vibes were high. A good crowd was in and the way Melbourne played in the first half caused no end of cheering. Hell, even the RedZed rally towels came in handy in keeping the sun at bay and wiping down sweat.
Parramatta looked disgusting in their all yellow kit, topped off by their more asbestos advertising. Nostalgia for advertising logos will always be bizarre, especially for an objectively evil corporation like them.
It was nice to see that Nine actually used the AAMI Park commentary box. Brenton Speed might not be my favourite commentator, but at least he was in the building with Gus Gould and Billy Slater.
Have to give credit to the SEN Storm Radio team of Jordan Kounelis, Robbie Kearns and Peter Robinson for their call of the match. Robbie and Robbo are always entertaining, and the SEN advertising wasn’t as bad as it is on the broadcast channel. Well worth a listen if you struggle with the television commentators.
7/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Paps got the maximum six Dally M points4 with the fullback showing some of the pace and movement that rocketed him to stardom back before his serious injuries.
Jack Howarth topped the run metres for Melbourne with 239m from 18 runs, with 51m coming after contact. He certainly continues to improve, but may need some more lessons under the high ball. His battle with Zac Lomax was interesting to watch — I don’t think the NSW representative was afforded much space by Howarth.
Munster had the ball on a string with line break assists and try assists in a dominate performance. He’ll only be disappointed not to get on the scoreboard himself.
Other than those three, it was a pretty even performance across the park.
Round 1 points:
3 – Ryan Papenhuyzen
3 – Cameron Munster
2 – Jack Howarth
1 – Nick Meaney
1 – Eliesa Katoa
Around the grounds
With the Queensland Cup season delayed because of Cyclone Alfred, the other action was focused on the NSWRL competitions.
NSW Cup: Sydney Roosters 12–10 North Sydney Bears
Joe Chan turned out for the Bears on Sunday afternoon at Wentworth Park. Norths scored the first try (taking a 4–0 half time lead) and the last try, but in between the Roosters scored two and a penalty goal to take a gritty win.
Harold Matthews Cup: Melbourne Storm 22–22 Penrith Panthers
It wasn’t a win, but the Storm Under-17s got their first competition point of the season with a draw. They probably should have won being up 22–6 at half time, but the Panthers fought back in the second half to square things up.
S.G. Ball Cup: Melbourne Storm 30–18 Penrith Panthers
Like the Under-17s, the Under-19s also got off to a fast start at Seabrook Reserve, leading 18–0 inside the first 20 minutes, heading to the sheds with a 12-point lead. The visitors would level things up not far into the second half while the Storm were down to 12 with forward Cooper Clarke in the naughty corner for 10 minutes. Two tries to Amaziah Murgha5 in the final quarter to complete his hat-trick giving the Storm a fourth-straight win.
Jersey Flegg Cup: Sydney Roosters 20–28 Melbourne Storm
The Under-21s squad got their season off to a winning start against the Roosters, fighting back from a 14–6 half time deficit to run away with the victory. Jak Goulding was sent to the sin bin during the second half, but the Storm scored while down to 12 players. Preston Conn scoring the late try to seal the result after Jacob Tinsley was sent off for the Roosters in the final ten minutes.
Next up
Round 2 — Bye
Round 3 vs Penrith Panthers – Thursday 20 March 2025, 8:00pm @ AAMI Park
A bye already?
Well I guess that confirms that the Parramatta game was a very soft launch for season 2025.6 I hadn’t planned any bye week content this week, so a preview post will be coming up next here before the round 3 match.
Grant now has 34 tries in 87 appearances for Melbourne. Cameron Smith famously scored 48 in 430 matches. I know the structure is very different these days, but Grant’s try scoring at hooker is very good.
Melbourne didn’t hit a half century in 2002, 2008–2009, 2011–2012, 2014, and 2016.
It’s not Melbourne’s largest home opener attendance though — that still belongs to the round 4 match against the Dragons in 2010 at Docklands.
Points awarded: Papenhuyzen (6), Munster (4), Meaney (1), Howarth (1).
This kid is pretty good, definitely one to keep an eye on.
Of course the NRL never listen to the very good idea of Melbourne hosting a match on the Saturday night of the F1 Grand Prix weekend to capitalise on the number of visitors in the city for the weekend. Even if it means the Storm play away on this particular weekend, given it’s the long weekend here.