Game 723 – S28E10 Review

Melbourne Storm 64–0 Wests Tigers

May 12, 2025

An old record fell and some more were equalled as the Storm put the Tigers to the sword on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Melbourne – 64 (Papenhuyzen 4', 9', 17', 46', King 24', Hughes 27', Meaney 34', Asofa-Solomona 51', Katoa 59', Munster 66', Garlick 74' tries; Papenhuyzen 10/11 goals)

Wests Tigers – 0

11 tries stretched the highlights video this week.

When I wrote about the club’s individual points scoring record in a match during the week, I didn’t expect it to be broken that weekend. When Ryan Papenhuyzen scored a natural hat trick to open this match, it did feel like it was just an exercise in how many points he could score. Boofa’s record was in danger and finally broken in the 77th minute on a sunny Sunday afternoon at AAMI Park. Well then — who saw that coming?

Just a little bit of magic

Going back to the start of the match, the way that Papenhuyzen scored his first try — that was something special. A broken final play, two kicks for himself weaving through the defensive line. It was the kind of play that gets people picked for midseason exhibition fixtures. He really needs to stop doing that.

That try, spectacular but based on pure effort set the tone for what was to come. Melbourne effort areas were, for what felt like the first time this season, at full capacity. The forwards were getting through the Tigers in the middle creating space for the halves to get to work, the edges looked fast and wanted the ball. The second try was pure Melbourne Storm in 2025. Attacking from a play-the-ball just inside their own half on tackle four, Jahrome Hughes, Cameron Munster and Papenhuyzen all involved in providing Grant Anderson and Xavier Coates with time and space against a passive defensive line. The little sprint from Paps to get back into position to receive the final pass from Coates summed up the effort play — not to forget that Bronson Garlick was also in position to receive that pass. It showed the message from the coaches had got through — put in the work and stick to the gameplan and good things happen.

Paps completed his natural hat-trick inside the first 20 minutes off the back of something that only happens once in a blue moon — a try directly from a goal line drop out. There’s a good reason why teams go for short drop outs towards their edges, because if you kick it straight up in the middle of the field things like what happened to the visitors are bound to happen. The effort from Coates to get there though was fantastic and of course it was Paps backing up to score untouched. Did enjoy a couple of Tigers players looking quizzically at their teammates.

The floodgates malfunction

At Paps 16–0 it already felt like the game was over as a contest. Melbourne had their visitors second-guessing themselves and being passive in defence. Only a couple of handling errors from the Storm gave them some semblance of attacking possession. Again for Melbourne though, an effort play brought points. Munster’s kick had the Tigers passive again, Coates bringing the ball to ground for Anderson to get the ball to Josh King to score under the posts. The big forward scoring his third try of the season and his 10th in Storm colours. Melbourne were just out-competing and out-enthusing Wests.

A minute or so later and it was Melbourne 28–0. Adam Doueihi put the restart over the deadball line and Melbourne manhandled them on their own line. This time the killer blow was a King offload to Garlick that sent Hughes on a path to the line, the halfback beating three defenders through effort. Effort — Melbourne had it in spades.

The arrival of Nelson Asofa-Solomona seemed to lift the forward pack even higher. Melbourne had them beaten again but for an errant last pass from Shawn Blore as the Storm looked like they could score on every set.

The personification of the first half came with seven minutes remaining when the Tigers threw an awful pass out to their left that went to ground only to be scooped up by Nick Meaney to sprint 60m to score untouched. In the end the only surprise of the first half was that the Storm didn’t already have 40 points on the board.

The Void

Did the Tigers defence disappear into The Void at times during the second half? It’s the only logical explanation. Paps could have had his fourth after Coates caught a Munster kick just short of the line, his offload just not going to hands. But it wasn’t long before the fullback equalled his career best for tries in a match, finishing the work his started on a short side raid with Anderson and Coates. The passing skills were sharp and Garlick’s options from dummy half were much better than in the past few weeks.

Asofa-Solomona crashed over to score his first try of the season in the 51st minute with AAMI Park in party mode. The big man had been full of verve in his stint and the Tigers just melted in front of him. How good was his try celebration too.

The Storm cracked 50 points with over 20 minutes left on the clock. Again the defence just disappeared as Melbourne put on one from the playbook, reaching into the past to bring back the old outside, inside, outside passing play down the right channel. Eli Katoa getting on the end of a set play from Hughes and Munster reminiscent of the Storm of old.

Melbourne were putting on a show and were one pass away from a 100+ metre try when Papenhuyzen and Coates launched down the left edge on a kick return fielded by Munster. That set might not have ended in points, but The Void struck down the Tigers defence again when Hughes put Munster over the line to score with 15 minutes remaining. Munster ghosting in as Paps equalled the club record with 34 points.

The Storm cruised for the last 15 minutes, not quite clocking off to earn the ire of the coach, but enough not to reach some of those untouchable scoring records. Stefano Utoikamanu gave away a couple of penalties, but it didn’t matter much. The Tigers never looked like scoring and Melbourne put the final exclamation mark on the match with five minutes to go when Garlick got the reward for his best match of the season, scoring his second try of the year. The hooker again in the right place at the right time to finish another clean line break from Munster.

Smile Bellyache

Post match quotes

Typical of Bellyache to be more pleased about the nil scoreline rather than the 64 points:

We probably haven’t stood up to those standards that we’ve expected, but it (the defence) was much improved. I was really happy with our first half defence. We scored some really good tries as well, I thought it was a pretty complete performance. We need to get consistent with that.
He (Papenhuyzen) was outstanding. He was on the ball and got some real rewards for him and the team. Having that many serious injuries, I thought some of those injuries would have drag him back physically, but they don’t seem to have done that. He had some horrific injuries in a short amount of time, to come back how he has and to play at the standard he has is remarkable.
We were all aware of it (discipline). They were all aware of our lapses in discipline last week. Everyone wanted to improve as individuals and improve from there. We just got on with it.
Our forwards done a really good job today. Our starting pack laid a good platform and those that came off the bench were outstanding with their defence and attack.

Stat offloads

Melbourne defeated Wests Tigers 64–0 for the second time in club history.
It was the fifth time Melbourne has scored exactly 64 points in a match, with the 64 point margin equalling the club’s greatest winning margin (the other occasion was the 68–4 win over Canberra in 2013).
Ryan Papenhuyzen’s now scored four tries in a match on three occasions, with all three matches played at AAMI Park. He’s scored 37 tries in 39 matches at the venue.
Papenhuyzen broke Matt Geyer’s long-standing club record of 34 points in a match by scoring 36, but he fell one goal short of equalling Matt Orford’s record of 11 goals in a match (scored against Penrith at Olympic Park in 2004).
Wests Tigers have conceded 60+ points on nine occasions, with Melbourne inflicting three of those heavy defeats.
Melbourne have held the opposition scoreless in 23 matches.

Was it worth it?

Melbourne’s lowest home crowd for the season so far, with 17,376 coming through the gates on a very sunny Sunday afternoon.1 I guess it was Mother’s Day and all that, so it’s understandable.2 Can attest that sitting in the sun wasn’t fun, but we can gloss over that when the Storm actually play to their potential for a welcome change.

Seeing a record fall and others equalled is always a good time when it’s the ones that Melbourne achieved.

Was nice to see the Jersey Flegg game and the Female Pathways Exhibition in what was a long day of rugby league. The girls ended up taking the win 12–6 against the Bears in what was a great exhibition of their skills.

The moment in the pregame with Justin Olam was nice too, although it was a little hard to hear exactly what was said.

9/10

One more thing…

vahs_health_service

A post shared by @vahs_health_service

The Storm are very much in the find out phase after they fucked around on Anzac Day. The organisation deserves the negative publicity and it will be interesting to see what further ramifications arise as the season progresses through to the Indigenous Rounds.

Storm Machine Player of the Year

Very hard not to give the record breaker a bunch of points this week. That first 20 minutes was Paps at his scintillating best. But there was more to this match that just the Ryan Papenhuyzen points show. The platform laid by the Storm forwards and the impact of NAS off the bench can’t be denied. There was definitely a response from the forward group as a whole and some of them reaped the rewards of hard work and sticking to the game plan.

Of course the halves were excellent against a very well beaten team and there’s a few that I have had to leave out of getting points even if they probably deserved them (looking at the left flank especially).

Round 10 points:

4 – Ryan Papenhuyzen
1 – Cameron Munster
1 – Jahrome Hughes
1 – Trent Loiero
1 – Shawn Blore
1 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona
1 – Bronson Garlick

Leaderboard

12 – Ryan Papenhuyzen
9 – Cameron Munster
8 – Eliesa Katoa
4 – Trent Loiero, Shawn Blore
3 – Stefano Utoikamanu, Harry Grant, Jahrome Hughes
2 – Jack Howarth, Grant Anderson, Josh King, Xavier Coates
1 – Nick Meaney, Kane Bradley, Joe Chan, Sualauvi Fa’alogo, Alec MacDonald, Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Bronson Garlick

Around the grounds

Jersey Flegg Cup — Melbourne Storm 26–28 Newcastle Knights

Topsy-turvey game for the under-21s on AAMI Park before the NRL match on Sunday. Hugo Peel opened the scoring early, but two tries in ten minutes saw the visitors lead. Storm hit back through halfback Dylan Brettle’s try to level the scores at 12–all, with the team eventually going to the sheds at 16–all. After the break, Melbourne scored first, but Wilson De Courcey completed a hat trick to give the Knights a slender lead heading into the final 20 minutes of the match. A converted try to Jai Bowden leveled the scores at 26–all with a few minutes left, but it wasn’t to be for the Storm this week when the referee ruled that a player had taken out the field goal kicker. The penalty from right in front of the posts the winning margin.

Queensland Cup — Northern Pride 10–18 Brisbane Tigers

The Tigers snapped their two-match losing streak to take home the points from Cairns. Coby Williamson scored a try and Keagan Russell-Smith started at halfback and converted all three of the Tigers tries.

NSW Cup — Newcastle Knights 24–26 North Sydney Bears

Marion Seve played a full game of rugby league! Siulagi Pio scored a try in the second half as the Bears came from 24–6 down to win it with a late try to Jake Toby. Ativalu Lisati also played 80 minutes at Scully Park.3 The win puts Norths into ninth on the ladder with four wins from their nine matches this season.

Super Netball — Sunshine Coast Lightning 74–56 Giants Netball

Domination from the Lightning against the Giants. Cara Koenen could hardly miss early, but the Giants were able to land a few super shots to bring the margin close at quarter time. Despite some errors in the second quarter the Lightning extended their lead and never looked back after half time. Koenan ended with a career best 56 goals.

Next up

Round 11 vs Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks – Saturday 17 May 2025, 7:35pm @ Sharks Stadium

Off to The Swamp next weekend to take on a home team fresh off a big win at Fortress Shithole for their second win against Manly this season. Did look like Nicho Hynes had a good game from what I saw in the brief highlights, so that will be interesting.

Preview post out Thursday.