Game 732 – S28E21 Review

Sydney Roosters 30–34 Melbourne Storm

jonnyforeigner

Jul 25, 2025

Melbourne take the win, but it came at a cost.

Sydney – 30 (Tupou 6', 16', Wong 32', Collins 47', Dockar-Clay 65' tries; Walker 5/5 goals)

Melbourne – 34 (King 10', 54', Howarth 20', Grant 26', Meaney 59', Utoikamanu 73' tries; Meaney 5/7 goals)

You can’t make me watch these highlights without a thousand shakes of my melon.

A Pyrrhic victory

a young girl with red hair is talking about what did it cost . — Poor Gamora

Can Melbourne win the premiership this season without Jahrome Hughes? It does feel like we’re about to find out the answer to a question we didn’t want asked.

I guess it’s another reminder that the NRL is currently Penrith’s competition until it isn’t.

Hughes going down in agony with a dislocated shoulder need not be the end of Melbourne’s season, but it’s hard right now to see a path through the next few months that ends with premiership number seven for Melbourne. On a stupid Thursday night at the ground where the grass is never greener, the Storm suffered a blow that will be hard to recover from, even if on the night it turned into a laudable victory.

As NRL Physio put it:

General recovery guide:
minimal structural damage/joint stable: trial rehab for 3-6 weeks;
significant damage/joint unstable: reco surgery & 3+ months.1

Dumb football matches

When you tune into Melbourne Storm away games in 2025 a sense of existential dread descends upon your house. Will the team show up? Can they show any kind of defensive fortitude? Do they even remember how to score points? Why is the bench set up in that fashion? Where is Will Warbrick, is he okay? Are Melbourne really the premiership favourites? What form of madness will Adam Gee subject us to this week? Does he even know how to blow a penalty in Melbourne’s favour? Was that pass actually forward? Is Chris Butler visually impaired? What have they put in the Sydney water supply that turned Cooper Cronk into a bloviating idiot? Does Andrew Voss come with a mute button? Is this match dumb or is it a classic of the genre? Why are you asking so many questions? Now I can’t stop asking questions… wait who are you and how did you get into my house? Is this even reality?

Whoa, gotta snap out of that.

This match is a prime example of a dumb rugby league match. Completion rates:

Sydney 33/39 (85%) — Melbourne 32/35 (91%)

Does it matter?

Early on in this match I tried taking some basic notes of things to try and make sense of what was happening. After reading Liam’s piece on completion rates at

Maroon Observer

this week, that was one of my focus points. It was especially prescient as both teams “completed” all their sets until the 29th minute. Was this some kind of perfect game of rugby league? Hell no.2

Melbourne might have been completing their sets, but they were not achieving much. Their first two sets gained no more than 35 metres before Hughes had to kick long to get out of the Storm’s half of the field. In reply the Roosters were gaining more ground and then thanks to a penalty, a set restart, and a knock down, had field position to set up an attack from a 10m scrum in front of the posts.

Of course Daniel Tupou scored a try. It’s what he does against Melbourne. Kane Bradley on the wing looked a little lost on the play, but it was all pretty passive from that side of the defensive line.3

Melbourne’s game plan got a little more expansive with their passing after going down on the scoreboard. A penalty and set restart helped matters too, giving the Storm their first look at the Roosters line. Hughes choosing the right option to put in a little grubber kick behind the defence for Josh King to plant the ball over the line.

So the secret to scoring was to be given a penalty and a set restart? Or just to capitalise on pinpoint kicks. After not challenging a close call when Tupou might have knocked on from a Tyran Wishart kick, the Roosters put up their own attacking kick for Tupou to score his second. This time he out-jumped Bradley to pull down a Sam Walker kick. It felt like it was a bit of a mismatch on that edge with Melbourne unable to contain the prolific tryscorer.

Tyran Wishart… what did you just do? Oh my. On second tackle after a line drop-out, Wishart saw a chance, kicked through for Xavier Coates for the winger to offload back to Jack Howarth to score. Chaos rugby league sometimes works? Nick Meaney’s missed conversion kept the Roosters in front, in a match that should have promised the usual grind that usually happens between these teams, but instead was going at over a point per minute in the first 20-odd minutes.

From the restart there was more chaos. Mark Nawaqanitawase couldn’t handle a kick, then with extended pressure on the Roosters line, Melbourne cracked them to take their first lead of the night. It was Harry Grant scheming in the left channel that broke the defence, the hooker squeezing in between Sandon Smith and Salesi Foketi who clashed heads trying to stop Grant close to the line. Smith was done for the night, but Foketi did return in the second half.

Keeping with the theme of the night so far, Tedesco regathered a short restart with the Storm asleep, then Grant Anderson was forced into touch on second tackle by a fired-up Roosters defensive line. In keeping with the theme, the Roosters wasted no time in regaining the lead, another Walker kick this time mishandled by Howarth gifting Siua Wong an easy try.

That was to be the end of the scoring in the first half. Melbourne had tried to grind out their sets in possession,4 while the Roosters looked increasingly dangerous to the defence when they had the ball. The only surprise was when the Roosters didn’t take the two points from a penalty shot a minute out from half time.

Andrew Johns:

What a great half.

Yeah, nah.

“What a gripping game of footy this is”

The injury to Jahrome Hughes started the second half.

In his absence Melbourne seemed to lean into the chaos. The Grant Anderson Experience in the halves made a return. Harry Grant gave away a seven tackle set with a silly kick that went dead. Without Hughes, Melbourne looked shapeless in attack, and their issues getting out of their own half seemed to be getting worse. Then the Roosters scored again. Lindsay Collins doing what he does best in finding the ball in the air and beating the defence with clean hands to catch and score from a Walker kick.

To be honest, I thought at that point the Roosters would rack up a score against a demoralised and depleted Melbourne. To their credit though, Melbourne stuck at their task, especially when Stefano Utoikamanu came back on for Tui Kamikamica.

Their resilience was rewarded when Grant put King through for his second try, opening a yawning gap past some porous defence. Still down by two points though, Melbourne needed to keep chasing the game.

Grant led from the front, credit to GA for playing a touch footy style link role in attack to give Wishy some kind of space to put together plays. Wishart was able to link with Eli Katoa in a familiar looking play down the right channel, Katoa’s dinky kick was played at by the Roosters, but despite Adam Gee not calling six again, Joe Chan put on a nice little move to put Means on a path to the line. The fullback beating a couple of defenders to reach out and score and hopefully not injure his shoulder.

How was there still 20 minutes to go with the scores at 28–24?

I had hoped the Melbourne could have kept the Roosters out for a little longer. Maybe they did…

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, James Tedesco is offside. Guess here’s another area we’ll be asking for consistency with from the officials.5

Down by two points again, Melbourne resisted challenging another Adam Gee moment, this time it didn’t cost them in points. But only because Daniel Tupou dropped the ball over the line. The Storm should have levelled the scores too in the 70th minute, only for Meaney’s penalty goal attempt to miss to the right. The following attack set from Melbourne was well run, especially when moving to the right. A set restart helped, but again it was Grant finding the right pass to spot the hole in the line. A fast play-the-ball from Jack Howarth allowed Grant to get out and attack the line, and some hard straight running from Utoikamanu to score.

There were still over six long minutes to go. The Roosters got a lucky break on a captain’s challenge that took them more than 10 seconds to issue, and with the game on the line Melbourne somehow resisted, forcing an error from Angus Crichton. It would come down to the final minute, but again Melbourne’s defensive effort held firm. A blatantly forward pass from Nawaqanitawase ending the game with Melbourne in front. A suitably dumb finish to the match.

Post match quotes

There was some good post match coverage on Nine, including a feature on the MOB gathering last weekend. Was great seeing some of the faces of the old boys in attendance.

Belsa was sombre when talking about Hughes which set the tone of the press conference:

If someone had said that we won the game but I’d be happy with that result if the opposition scored 30 points, I’d say no way in the world. But considering the circumstances tonight, I think we need to do a little bit of work on defending kicks — I think they score five tries off kicks. So that’s something we’ll need to be a fair bit sharper at.
But I thought with the situation, with our guys that are not playing, the guys that are playing did a really good job. The Roosters kept coming.
There’s a lot of things you can look down at, when someone misses out, someone else gets a chance.

Stat offloads

The final score of 34–30 is a Melbourne Storm scorigami. There have now been 15 matches in the NRL era that have ended with that scoreline.
It’s only the sixth time that Melbourne have conceded 30 or more points and won the match. The Storm’s record in matches where they have conceded that amount of points is 6–1–77.6
Josh King scored his first career double. He now has 14 career tries in 173 NRL appearances after going tryless in his first 58 matches for the Knights, he has 12 tries in 95 Storm appearances.
Harry Grant amassed 121 SuperCoach points, the first time he’s scored over 100 points this season. In 113 NRL matches he’s scored 100+ on 17 occasions.7

Was it worth it?

Just 13,991 through the gates at the SFS, the fourth time the Roosters haven’t cracked 14,000 fans since the venue opened. I’m sure the Roosters tens of fans just love going to their roofless stadium on a Thursday night, even if it didn’t rain for a change.

Pretty sure you can gather my thoughts from the review about this match. Let’s never speak of this match again.

5/10

Storm Machine Player of the Year

Captain’s knock? Sure let’s go with that. Harry Grant made up for his match-deciding penalty last week by leading his depleted team to the win. He scored a try and set up two more and looked in control among the chaos. Hard to go past Josh King for a point for each of his tries, even if he wasn’t the best forward out there in the middle for the Storm. That honour goes to Stefano Utoikamanu who was impressive with the ball and solid in defence.

Points also this week to Jack Howarth and Tyran Wishart. Howarth got on the scoreboard and while one error under the high ball did lead to a try to the Roosters, he was otherwise great in getting some good metres. Wishy filled in well for Cameron Munster at five-eighth and his early kick that lead to the Howarth try was bold, but came off well.

Round 21 points:

3 – Harry Grant
2 – Josh King
1 – Stefano Utoikamanu
1 – Jack Howarth
1 – Tyran Wishart

Leaderboard

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

Around the grounds

NSW Cup — North Sydney Bears v Western Suburbs Magpies

Friday 6pm

Queensland Cup — Tweed Heads Seagulls v Sunshine Coast Falcons

Saturday 5pm

Queensland Cup — Mackay Cutters v Brisbane Tigers

Saturday 7:30pm

Next up

Round 21 vs Parramatta Eels – Thursday 31 July 2025, 7:50pm @ CommBank Stadium

Cameron Munster will be back, Jahrome Hughes will not.

What new dramas will beset the Melbourne Storm? Will they reveal an indigenous round jersey this week? Have there been too many questions asked in this post?

Preview post online Thursday.