Game 724 – S28E11 Review

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 31–26 Melbourne Storm

May 19, 2025

Melbourne’s poor form away from AAMI Park continued despite a second half fightback interspersed with some pretty dumb footy.

Cronulla – 31 (Atkinson 27', 53', Mulitalo 8', Fonua-Blake 22', Iro 36' tries; Hynes 5/6 goals; Trindall field goal 40')

Melbourne – 26 (Coates 32', 45', 68', Anderson 5', Meaney 47' tries; Papenhuyzen 3/5 goals)

Right edge troubles plagued both teams, but conceding five tries won’t win many rugby league matches.

Excuses, excuses

A couple of years ago the first verse of this ditty was published here, it’s time for the second:1

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

I do not like him with the whistle
When he has it, it makes me bristle
I do not like him as the ref
It makes me feel quite bereft
I do not like Adam Gee
On this all Storm fans can agree

I do not like his orange shirt
Or his arrogant little smirk
I do not like his interpretations
Or his odd communications
I do not like Adam Gee
On this most rugby league fans agree

The thing with Adam Gee, he’s predictable.2 Melbourne are always going to have a bad time when he’s the referee and surely know that coming in by now right… right?

I think I said “there’s a penalty coming here” at the start of every set that Cronulla were going to need a piggyback penalty and surely enough there was one. That the penalty came almost isn’t the fault of the referee, it’s the Melbourne players being dumb enough to afford him the chance to make that decision. It’s dumb footy and unfortunately the 2025 Melbourne Storm have this as one of their collective character traits. Fortunately it’s only May and there is time for this tendency to dissipate before it’s too late.

As such that leads to the second poor trait of this Melbourne team in 2025 — the frankly shitful performances away from AAMI Park. The Storm have trips to Robina, Homebush, Townsville, Newcastle, Moore Park and Parramatta (twice) to come in 2025, before finishing at Lang Park. To make the top four Melbourne need to win more than half of them. At the moment, it would be hard to pick them in most of them, especially if it rains. That’s not going to be a good time.

From now until the end of June we’re going to find out much about the Melbourne Storm. If the exhibition series players don’t back up in the match against the Titans, Melbourne will struggle. We could almost already chalk down a loss against the Cowboys in Townsville already ahead of the third exhibition series match. The following weekend against Newcastle does not scream “rest players,” rather it might be a much-needed confidence boost.

The other complaint that many Storm fans have in 2025 is surrounding selection. Hoo boy, there’s a lot of noise at the moment. As I said in the preview, I thought it would have been prudent for Tui Kamikamica to have been playing minutes in the Queensland Cup this week, or even running out for the Bears. He needs to run around in a match situation and get some confidence in his role. Joe Chan got 17 minutes through the middle of the second half. Cronulla didn’t score during that period. Without Alec MacDonald this week, he should have been able to take his minutes coming on much earlier to provide impact and spark. I mostly understood what the intention was with Harry Grant, but it felt messy and forced in a way that didn’t help the team.

Watching the replay

Oh this was a punish. Inane and Ennis ruined my Saturday night and watching the replay wasn’t pleasant. Nor was the scene before the match with the cameras focusing on the chat between Alec MacDonald and Craig Bellamy in the sheds with the Chin a late withdrawal.

Did Melbourne look good early in this match? Yes, yes they did. It almost looked like they were playing dry weather footy. Melbourne’s left edge looked sharp.

How Ronaldo Mulitalo wasn’t subject to supplementary discipline for his cynical hit on Sua Fa’alogo was curious. The Storm’s attack looked very left flank focused in the opening sets, and Cameron Munster knew exactly where to attack the Sharks line, sending Grant Anderson through a yawning gap between Nicho Hynes and Jesse Ramien. It was a fast start to take a 6–0 lead, and the sharp attack continued on the very next set, until Munster tried to throw a miracle offload.

Without Will Warbrick at the moment, there is a weak spot in Melbourne’s defensive structure and it’s the right edge. It’s mostly about the confidence in the combination rather than the individual personnel. The Sharks first try through Mulitalo looked oh so simple attacking down their left edge. Melbourne’s lead was gone and a reset was needed.

But the narrative kicked in with Melbourne conceding piggyback penalties and set restarts. That the Sharks scored from a crash play via Addin Fonua-Blake wasn’t great. Coming on the back of three interventions by Gee, Melbourne’s apparent poor discipline was costly.3 Suspect that Harry Grant, Josh King and Shawn Blore might have liked to have made a bigger impact trying to defend the middle on the try scoring play.

An error called against Tui Kamikamica with his first touch wasn’t great and gave the Sharks field position. From there it was a magical flick pass from Siosifa Talakai that gave the Melbourne defenders no chance to stop Daniel Atkinson from scoring. That sparked changes for the Storm with Grant and King taken off for Tyran Wishart and Nelson Asofa-Solomona.

NAS made an immediate impact, with Melbourne finally able to make some metres in the middle. A couple of ill-advised crash plays ended with Melbourne short of the line, but when they finally spread the ball left Xavier Coates easily scored.

Down by six points with five minutes left in the half, Melbourne really needed to not concede again. But an error from Ryan Papenhuyzen under the high ball gave the Sharks the impetus and they took immediate advantage. KL Iro was always going to score in this match, but for Melbourne to concede that easily on a scrum play. Oooft.

Braydon Trindall’s field goal to end the first half was the final blow. While other teams have proven that margins can be chased down, this Storm team has yet to look like they have the intestinal fortitude for that kind of comeback.

Up there Xavier

The second try scored by Coates was a classic Melbourne Storm play. It was a move from the training field targetting the weak side of the Cronulla defence with crisp passing. I loved the work of Trent Loiero in the middle to link with his halves with pace and timing.

Melbourne went back to back scoring on the back of a monster bomb from Munster. Jahrome Hughes put the pressure on Will Kennedy who knocked on with the ball bouncing straight to Nick Meaney to score. Melbourne had cut the margin to three points within seven minutes of the resumption, but it wasn’t to stay that way for too long.

Another Kennedy error from a Paps kick led to a nearly moment for Melbourne, Coates ruled to have knocked on when he tapped back the ball from a kick to his wing. Sigh.

The piggyback penalty ended Melbourne’s comeback. The passive defence up against the Sharks attacking raid sealed the deal. Atkinson getting on the end of a flowing play to score his first career double.

With over 25 minutes to go and with the Sharks up by nine, Melbourne had enough chances to get back in front. Joe Chan’s injection into the play was overdue, Grant’s return for Wishart also helped. There were chances for Melbourne before Coates flew into the night sky, but they all ended in errors. Munster’s try saving tackle on Billy Burns though was high quality, while the penalty awarded to Cronulla was just par for the course,4 it was amusing that Nicho Hynes missed.

That miss led to this, which once the commentary is muted, is a moment for the ages:

Completing his hat-trick, Coates brought the Storm to within five points again, but Paps couldn’t convert. It did feel kind of inevitable in the final ten minutes that Melbourne wouldn’t get the try that could win the game, especially once the whistle was put away on set restarts. Jahrome Hughes was penalised and put on report for reasons that not even General Bias could manufacture a charge. Credit to the Sharks for moving Mulitalo across the field and grinding out their sets to force Melbourne into desperate errors, even if the final minute was a little bit farcical.

Post match quotes

Philosophical Belsa this week:

We know we were playing a good side tonight. We just need to get more consistent with what we do, away and at home. We just need to work out what we see as important and be more consistent with it.
We prided ourselves on being consistent whether we’re playing at home or away, but that’s not happening at the moment. It’s concerning whether Origin is on or not.

Stat offloads

This was the first NRL match to end with a 31–26 scoreline, the first since the 1992 NSWRL season when Souths defeated Canterbury at the SFS.
Xavier Coates became the 19th player to score 50 tries for the club with his first of the night. He drew level with Matt Orford with 52 tries when he completed his hat-trick.
Coates has eight hat-tricks in his NRL career, all with the Storm in 64 appearances.
Melbourne have now lost four straight matches at The Swamp, their longest losing streak at the venue surpassing the losing streak between 2000 and 2002.
Daniel Atkinson is undefeated in three regular season matches against Melbourne, his only defeated against the Storm coming in the qualifying final last year.

Was it worth it?

Yeah this is a pretty iconic image to come from a losing effort:

I kinda want to see it as one of the Cazaly Classics footy cards I collected *ahem* 30 years ago.

I did say that Storm fans needed to calibrate their enthusiasm for this match and so it proved to be.

3/10

Storm Machine Player of the Year

A point again for each try scored by a multiple try scorer. Xavier Coates probably deserves the three points anyway for taking the mark of the year to score his third of the night.

Cameron Munster had three try assists and was in most of the good things for Melbourne, while I thought Trent Loiero was Melbourne’s best middle forward.

I thought that Stefano Utoikamanu backed up his effort against the Tigers pretty well. He did concede a couple of referee interactions, which he can continue to work on. It’s interesting to see him out there after the 20th minute of the first half though. He definitely starts to lumber and lope around until he comes off. Melbourne need to be sharper with their interchanges lest that becomes a greater issue.

Round 11 points:

3 – Xavier Coates
1 – Cameron Munster
1 – Trent Loiero

Leaderboard

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

Around the grounds

Queensland Cup — Brisbane Tigers 24–28 Redcliffe Dolphins

The Tigers held a 20–12 lead at half time at home against the Dolphins on Saturday afternoon, but a second half comeback saw the visitors move ahead with 15 minutes to go. Easts scored with five minutes remaining to take a narrow lead, but couldn’t hold on with Ethan Quai-Ward scoring a try in the 78th minute to take the win. Kane Bradley and Keagan Russell-Smith were both in action.

Queensland Cup — Sunshine Coast Falcons 14–24 Tweed Heads Seagulls

A similar story for the Falcons, leading 14–4 at half time at home against the Seagulls. They conceded four tries in the first 20 minutes after the break and that was that. Lazarus Vaalepu got in 45 or so minutes after starting at prop, while Angus Hinchey also came off the interchange.

NSW Cup — North Sydney Bears 18–28 St George Illawarra Dragons

Bronson Garlick scored a try on his return to the Bears, but it wasn’t enough as the Dragons overcame a 12–4 half time deficit with right winger Ben Rumble scoring a natural hat-trick for the visitors at North Sydney Oval. Marion Seve, Ativalu Lisati and Gabriel Satrick all were in action this week.

Super Netball — Melbourne Vixens 50–62 Sunshine Coast Lightning

Reilly Batcheldor started in place of Cara Koenen and helped the Lightning to a dominant win against the Vixen at John Cain Arena. Shooting at over 90% she was on fire in the goal circle with the Sunshine Coast getting out to as much as an 11-goal lead in the second quarter, eventually leading by eight goals at half time. Steph Fretwell almost made it 10 goals but couldn’t land a super shot on the siren. In defence, Courtney Bruce was on a mission against Diamonds teammate Sophie Garbin, with the Vixens trying out a number of combinations to blunt the impact of Bruce and Tara Hinchliffe who was immense.

The second half was a little tighter, but the high percentage shots for the Lightning kept the scoreboard ticking over while the Vixens tried to play catch up. The closest they got was eight goals in the final quarter, but the Lightning were too good to beat the Vixens in Melbourne again.

Next up

Round 12 bye

Round 13 vs Gold Coast Titans – Saturday 31 May 2025, 3:00pm @ CBus Super Stadium

A bye week. Some players will have a distraction away playing meaningless mideseason exhibition matches, others have a fortnight to get over niggles and stew over a loss. Fun times. A narrowed focus on defence will definitely be on the menu.

Not sure I’m feeling any inspiration for a bye week special as yet, but that could change. In any event I’m off to the Titans game in round 13, so that will be a thing.