Game 728 – S28E17 Review

Melbourne Storm 30–6 Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks

Jun 30, 2025

The final scoreboard might look comfortable, but Melbourne were made to work hard for the two points.

Melbourne – 30 (Katoa 6', Fa’alogo 27', Meaney 65', Hughes 73', Loiero 79' tries; Papenhuyzen 4/6, Meaney 1/1 goals)

Cronulla-Sutherland – 6 (Trindall 34' try; Hynes 1/1 goal)

Five tries this week with Eli Katoa stealing the show.

Was that the unmistakable scent of the grind?

Assisted by a referee who wants to retain his Origin appointment, both teams looked to settle into a defensive rhythm in the opening exchanges. Cronulla though, compared to Melbourne looked to have been put on the back foot, struggling to penetrate the Storm’s defensive line. A set restart for the Melbourne for a flop against Nicho Hynes gave the Storm an attacking set inside the Sharks half and immediately Cameron Munster and Jahrome Hughes attacked the right channel to send Eli Katoa through a massive gap to score. The work of the two halves to pinpoint their passes underpinned by some nice ballplaying from Trent Loiero. Katoa’s work to be in the right position running the right angle was beautiful. Clinical skill to pick apart the defence had Hughes celebrating long before Katoa put the ball down to score.

After the visitors wasted their challenge, Melbourne had a glut of possession without coming up with points.1 The impetus was lost though when a kick from Hughes didn’t quite find the right spot to hand Cronulla a seven-tackle set. The Sharks turned that defensive pressure into their own sustained pressure with the ball on the Melbourne line. Now it was the Storm’s time to grind through a period of the match entrenched in their own half.

You could see what the gameplan was for the visitors — use their middles and right edge to put pressure on Melbourne, then turn the ball left to target the defensive edge for Melbourne where Nick Meaney and Sua Fa’alogo were stationed. Twice they tried to isolate Fa’alogo alone against multiple attacking options, twice the diminutive winger foiled their passing by getting a hand in to deflect a pass. Sending Siosifa Talakai and Ronaldo Mulitalo at Fa’alogo almost didn’t seem fair, until the Victorian was able to show off his greatest asset — speed.

Fa’alogo taking an intercept in open space and running 90 metres to score. How good.2

Meaney getting up early disrupting Nicho Hynes was a definite improvement from last week. It’s just nice to see learning being applied from harsh lessons.

That try might have extended Melbourne’s lead to a deserved 10 points, but they were forced back into the grind due to their dual 2025 themes of failing discipline and ball control. The Sharks try coming from a Hynes bomb that Melbourne failed to contest in any meaningful way felt a little emblematic of their efforts at times this season. Letting the ball bounce from bombs is always fraught, even if that seems to be preferred method of many teams. Letting the ball bounce in the middle of the field 10 metres directly in front of the posts is just a little negligent. Fa’alogo hesitated and didn’t contest the ball, Braydon Trindall pounced and scored.

Thankfully though it was something of a blip for Fa’alogo who was otherwise good when tested by Hynes and Trindall kicks.

Making it count

With two of the top four teams losing this week and a couple of teams in the chasing pack looking ominous, this was the kind of match Melbourne could ill-afford to let slip. This second half might just prove to this Storm outfit that they need to play good footy to bank enough wins to have a good shot come September.

Cronulla errors, set restarts and a penalty handed Melbourne a gift two points to open the second half, and from there the Storm seemed to have the confidence that they wouldn’t be beaten, even if Paps missed another penalty shot attempt.

Jahrome Hughes looked dangerous with every possession, while the back five kept gaining territory when needed. Eventually Melbourne’s superior play counted on the scoreboard.

That it came from a Hughes kick wasn’t a surprise, nor was it a surprise it was down the right flank, the brilliance though was supplied by Eli Katoa. Katoa’s 30 metre gut-busting sprint to catch the ball on the fly in front of Will Kennedy and have the ability to swivel in the tackle to pass to Meaney, superlatives don’t do it justice. Paps converted to make it 18–6 with 14 minutes to go.

Comedy rugby league

Just some quick hits:

Jahrome Hughes attempting a bicycle kick when competing for a Munster kick; and
Braydon Trindall winning the crossbar challenge on the bounce only for Talakai to drop the ball off the rebound.

Just love the levity.

Finality

Fa’alogo probably should have scored in the 71st minute. He’ll learn that getting airborne isn’t always the best way to beat a defender to the corner. That his boot touched the line was a little unlucky in the end as he probably deserved to score his second try of the afternoon.

That missed opportunity came from a cutout pass thrown by who other than Katoa. Melbourne had piled on the pressure in the second half, keeping the Sharks in their own half for long periods. It was old-fashioned Storm grinding play. Katoa wasn’t done with his big day out, turning up for another Hughes kick to beat Kennedy in the air again to offload to his halfback who scored untouched.

The only negative to come out of this match was the hamstring injury to Fa’alogo. Moving to fullback when Paps got an early mark, his 60 metre dash down the sideline was electrifying until he went down in a heap after an ankle tap attempt from Addin Fonua-Blake. Can only hope the damage is in the short-term injury time frame rather than something more significant.

Melbourne sent home the fans with some more frivolity when Trent Loiero scored his second try of the season, just clutching onto the ball at the third attempt from a Nelson Asofa-Solomona offload. Loved his line in the post match:

For some reason I’ll do anything to butcher a try. I’m surprised I held it and scored.

Post match quotes

Belsa seemed pleased with the second half:

Really happy with how we played and the way we went about our work. The score flattered us a little bit, but I thought our defence today was outstanding.

He had some good words about Eli Katoa too:

He’s one talented athlete, but he’s also got that want and drive to work hard to make sure that ability that he’s got, he can produce that each and every week. He’s one bloke that never lets us down.

Stat offloads

Melbourne have now played in five NRL matches that have ended with a 30–6 scoreboard, winning four. The last team the Storm defeated with that same score was Manly in 2020. There have been 32 matches in the NRL-era that have ended with this scoreline.
Melbourne have now scored 18,001 points in 728 competitive matches.
The current 10 match winning streak at AAMI Park equals the club’s second longest streak at the venue. The longest winning streak is 14 matches across 2023–2024.
Crowd watch — 21,399 through the gates at AAMI Park puts Melbourne’s season average to 21,609 still above last season’s average for a 2.57% increase with four regular season home matches remaining.

Was it worth it?

AAMI Park was a picture on what ended up as a sunny Sunday afternoon after a bit of drizzle during the warm-up. The turf was in pristine condition and there was some good noise in the stadium thanks to the presence of the junior rugby league teams who paraded around the field before kickoff.

Beating Cronulla is always a good thing, even if the quality of this match, especially in the first half, tended towards mid-season slop.

7/10

Storm Machine Player of the Year

How about the effort from Eli Katoa. He was credited with 145m from 17 runs, but the two kick chase efforts that resulted in tries to his teammates was fantastic. 32 tackles with only a couple of misses topped off a great afternoon for the edge forward. He takes the lead from Ryan Papenhuyzen with an almost perfect match.

Thought Jahrome Hughes deserved a lot of the credit this week for steering the team around and choosing good options, especially in the second half after Melbourne looked a little clunky in the first half. Points also to Sua Fa’alogo who was thoroughly tested by the Sharks and might have been guilty of one error under the high ball, it was pleasing to see him learn from the lessons handed out by Alex Johnston last week. Tryscorer Trent Loiero has been in great form during the middle of the season ever since his bad day out at Magic Round.

Round 17 points:

4 – Eliesa Katoa
2 – Jahrome Hughes
1 – Sualauvi Fa’alogo
1 – Trent Loiero

Leaderboard

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

Around the grounds

Jersey Flegg Cup — Kaiviti Silktails 14–36 Melbourne Storm

The Storm jumped back to the top of the Jersey Flegg Cup ladder with a good win in Fiji on Friday. A hat-trick to Amaziah Murgha more than enough to get the job done. Melbourne have the best attack and defence so far this season and look likely to make the finals for the first time in seven seasons played in this competition.

Queensland Cup — Ipswich Jets 28–16 Brisbane Tigers

On Sunday afternoon at Robina before the Titans loss to the Cowboys, their affiliated Queensland Cup team got the better of the Brisbane Tigers, coming from behind at half time to get the win. Josiah Pahulu scored the Tigers first try of the day, but conceding three tries in ten minutes during the second half wasn’t great. Keagan Russell-Smith started at hooker, but played only 26 minutes, with Coby Williamson playing the full 80 minutes on the wing.

Queensland Cup — Sunshine Coast Falcons 48–16 Western Clydesdales

A comfortable afternoon for the Falcons, setting up a win with a 42–0 lead at half time against the Clydesdales. The visitors scored three tries in the second half to make a small dent in the scoreboard, but never got that close. Jonah Pezet played 80 minutes this week and Lazarus Vaalepu 49 minutes starting at prop.

Super Netball — Sunshine Coast Lightning 54–69 West Coast Fever

Tough night for the Lightning missing Cara Koenen at home to their nemesis Fever. The green team took a 22–13 lead at quarter time and while the Sunshine Coast matched them over the next two quarters, they couldn’t make a dent into that margin. The loss sees the team level on points with the Thunderbirds, but dropping out of the top four on percentage.

Next up

Round 18 vs North Queensland Cowboys – Saturday 5 July 2025, 7:35pm @ QCB Stadium

Both teams affected by Origin. What could possibly go wrong? Maybe they should petition the NRL to play a game of touch football instead to entertain the fans… or maybe Scott Drinkwater versus Ryan Papenhuyzen in a series of rugby league related mini games…

Preview post later in the week.