Game 755 – S29E14 Review
Melbourne Storm 32–30 Newcastle Knights
A shootout at AAMI Park with the Storm holding on in the end to secure the points.
Melbourne – 32 (Utoikamanu 8', Waitere 23', Warbrick 38', Hughes 46', Leo 56', Loiero 70' tries; Fa’alogo 4/6 goals)
Newcastle – 30 (Sharpe 17', Lucas 30', Brown 41', McEwen 61', Saifiti 73' tries; Ponga 5/5 goals)
Just 11 tries in the early Friday evening slot… rugby league in 2026.
It felt like the Knight had the better of the opening exchanges until the match was put on pause as Newcastle hooker Phoenix Crossland was left prone on the turf. Crossland had collided with Joe Chan who was running a decoy. It was a strange one and, while part of me was surprised that there wasn’t some kind of penalty against Chan, it’s hard to work out how it wasn’t anything other than an accident.
It was a delay of five minutes before Crossland was removed on the medicab, and Melbourne’s interrupted attacking set ended with a line drop-out. The next set with the ball resulted in points as Melbourne’s forwards went to work. All of the middles had touches, and it was big Stefano Utoikamanu who crashed over from a deceptive Harry Grant short ball to carry three defenders over the line to score his first try for the season.
Fast start on the scoreboard secured, the Storm held out the Knights on a set where they were able to get around on the flanks twice, only for a bad pass from Fletcher Hunt to go to ground forward off Greg Marzhew. Jahrome Hughes then kicked his second 40/20 of the season to put the Storm back on the attack. Again Melbourne looked good in the redzone — Joe Chan was held up over the line on fourth tackle, the set ending with a line drop-out for the second time. It was relentless attack from the Storm, but there would be no addition to the scoreboard with Will Warbrick stopped short of the line when Kalyn Ponga got away with a shoulder charge that dislodged the ball.
Warbrick then made a critical error on second tackle coming out from the Storm end and it only took a handful of plays for the visitors to get over the line and level the scores. Sigh.
Thankfully it didn’t seem to affect the Storm — they got the ball back and marched down the field with a set restart on the back of some good running in the middle. They mightn’t have scored on that possession, or the next, but they had the Knights scrambling and looking disconnected in defence. That defence was exploited to good effect by Hughes and Sualauvi Fa’alogo, their passing finished off by Manaia Waitere who found some great strength to bump out of tackles to slam the ball down for his second try of the year.
Such was the way this was going it would be the Knights next to score and take a two-point lead. They had come close off a Dom Young kick that bounced dead off Dylan Brown after duelling with Grant for the bouncing ball, but they wouldn’t be denied scoring a long-range try through Dylan Lucas after Ponga and Hunt bamboozled Melbourne down their left edge.
The Storm were lucky to just be down by two points after Hughes was penalised by the human roll-on deodorant, only for Ponga to drop the ball and get pushed over by Queensland teammate Cameron Munster to spark a push and shove moment that looked more provocative than what it was.
Munster copped the penalty, but it didn’t result in points this time around with the visitors dropping the ball without the extracurriculars this time.
In danger of heading to half time behind for the first time in a match since Anzac Day, Melbourne wound up in the shadows of the break. There was faux razzle-dazzle football and eventually the ball ended up in the hands of an offside Jermaine McEwen to hand Melbourne more possession. Runs in the middle created space on the edges and an excellent pass from Hughes put Warbrick into the corner to make no mistake this time in getting the ball to the turf. Hughes assisting yet another try in 2026, this time with a looping well-timed pass.
Conceding long range tries
You would like to think that a team wouldn’t concede multiple long range tries in one match. Unfortunately in the opening minute of the second half, Melbourne were again left embarrassed by the visitors scoring from deep inside their own half. Ponga again was the architect, this time attacking Chan and Leo — Dylan Brown finishing the movement with Melbourne players seemingly unable to stop the movement of the ball. While it was excellent play from the visitors, it wasn’t great defence.
Now down by four points, it felt like Melbourne were on the verge of unravelling. A penalty on the restart could have been costly, especially with Ponga looking threatening. Newcastle should have scored if Lucas hadn’t been penalised for the clearest double movement in the history of double movement no tries.
Then came the moment that seemed to swing the match back to Melbourne. On a kick return Marzhew came up with an error as bad as Warbrick’s in the first half, for the ball to bounce straight to Alec MacDonald. He would hand the ball straight to Hughes and the halfback just went bang. His fend off to beat Ponga was Inglis-like. His run to the line was clear and fast. In an instant Melbourne had the lead, and Ponga looked broken.
Following that try, the match did enter just a little period of consolidation. What Melbourne needed was to be the next team to score — if only to be the first team to score consecutive tries.
After a little bit of spluttering, the try did come for Melbourne. It was a little moment of Munster magic that deceived the visitors, his deft grubber out to the wing of Moses Leo was greedily gobbled up and put down cleanly over the line.
If only Melbourne’s eight-point lead lasted more than five minutes. Instead the visitors pulled it back to a two-point deficit, this time scoring after Chan remained down after attempting a tackle on Young. It isn’t a forgiving replay for the makeshift centre. He either needed to get back into position, or get off the field. Leaving his teammates to defend one short doesn’t cut it I’m afraid. Dane Gagai went straight through where Chan should have been a play later, exposing some flimsy defence on that edge. McEwen scoring the try and with 20 minutes to play, and it appeared this match was going to be won by the team that scored last.
The eight point lead that Melbourne had enjoyed was restored in the 70th minute by the unlikely tryscorer — Trent Loiero hadn’t scored this year, or since his double against the Knights in round 19 last season. The Maroons forward made no errors, conceded no penalties or set restarts and was superb in the middle. His try was typical of his hard work. Supporting Grant close to the line, his strength to beat two in the tackle looked simple, but it’s the effort to get there and have the right mindset to think his way through to getting the ball down was perfect.
Such was the nature of this match that the scoring wasn’t done yet, which made for a nervy final ten minutes. The Knights kicked off and got the ball back with the Steeden evading Melbourne to bounce back to the visitors. It only took a few plays on an extended set to score through Jacob Saifiti after the big man ran onto a kick from Ponga that caught out the Storm defenders. It was a risky play, but the perfect one from the mercurial Newcastle custodian.
The final five minutes, with Melbourne leading by just two points was the first time that the Storm’s defence seemed to turn up and work together as a cohesive unit. In attack though, Melbourne played a little bit of panic football — it felt like they knew they needed to score again despite leading by two points. A few big tackles though, including one from Munster on Brown was key to shutting down the Knights in attack.1 Melbourne scrambled well for the first time all night too in shutting down another potential long range effort.
Time eventually ran out for the visitors. Thankfully a final second bit of madness ended up with the Knights losing a captain’s challenge of little utility.
Interchange watch
Not to belabour a point, but the coaching staff did only use 16 players. One day Josiah Pahulu will actually make his Storm debut, but it was not this day.
Stefano Utoikamanu was the first Storm change in the 27th minute for Alec MacDonald, Josh King was subbed off for Jack Hetherington in the 32nd minute, with Utoikamanu rejoining the action ten minutes into the second half for Hetherington to return to the seats. King returned soon after to send MacDonald back for a spell… then Cooper Clarke got a rest after an hour. Trent Loiero’s reward for scoring was an early mark — except he returned about five minutes later. The strategy just seems a little hard to understand.
Post match quotes
Reflective Belsa this week:
We had all the ball [in the first half] and a lot of field position, but they (Newcastle) defended their 20 metre zone as good as any team we’ve played this year. You don’t expect to have 30 points scored against you and still win the game.
Where we’re at the moment, we’ll take any win, especially against a team in the top four.
Our spine’s probably been our strength this year. We’ve been able to keep our spine basically in tact and they’ve done a great job for us.
[Trent Loiero] has been down a little bit in confidence, but he’s worked at it, and we’ve built his confidence up — the last two weeks he’s come a really long way. He’s playing important minutes for us.
The news about Xavier Coates’ ruptured achilles dropped after the match. Not having him on board for 2026 is no fun at all.
Stat offloads
There have been 15 NRL-era matches to end with a final score of 32–30 and Melbourne have featured in three of them. There was the match against the Eels in 2002 and the heavily referee influenced, rage inducing match between the Storm and Knights at Newcastle in 2014.2
Melbourne made just three handling errors for the match, but did miss 35 tackles for the match. Newcastle made 14 handling errors.
Will Warbrick’s try saw him move to equal 20th in the list of Melbourne Storm tryscorers with 48 tries from 70 appearances, drawing level with Cameron Smith. At the other end of the scale, Stefano Utoikamanu scored his third Storm try in his 39th appearance for the club, moving past NRL Hall of Fame inductee Glenn Lazarus who scored twice in 44 matches for Melbourne.
Newcastle still haven’t beaten the Storm in Melbourne since 2015.
This was Melbourne’s first Friday night win this season from six starts. The Storm have a further three matches on Friday night to end the season.
Was it worth it?
Just 14,268 fans through the gates for this one, with the impossible time slot cutting anything up to 5,000 fans from the potential attendance figure had this been held a few hours later. As always with the unfriendly time slot, there was plenty outside the gates at kickoff.
Sitting down later on Friday night, I was trying to process what had gone on at AAMI Park during this match, but it felt like a fool’s errand. It might have been rugby league what we watched, but it like as unsatisfying as T20 cricket. There’s no substance to the all-action slop we’re being served by the players under the King PVL rules. There’s little tension and drama. The essence of what makes rugby league is lacking.
To have 62 points scored and a two-point margin would suggest that this match was a classic, but it really wasn’t. I did wonder whether it was just a #Kleined factor in that no one was having fun, but the malaise seems deeper than that.
6/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
See round 1 for the ratings explanations.
Round 14
8 — Stefano Utoikamanu, Trent Loiero
7 — Sua Fa’alogo, Moses Leo, Cameron Munster, Jahrome Hughes, Harry Grant
6 — Manaia Waitere, Cooper Clarke, Ativalu Lisati
5 — Josh King, Alec MacDonald
4 — Will Warbrick, Jack Hetherington, Shawn Blore
3 — Joe Chan
Around the grounds
It looked pretty cold and miserable out at Seabrook Reserve on Saturday morning and it wasn’t the best start for the U21 squad conceding a try to the Knights in the second minute on a kick return that saw the visitors travel the length of the field untouched. However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Storm. After his star turn in the NSW Cup last week, playmaker Hayden Watson dropped back to this competition to again show why he is so highly rated. His first try came a play after Amare Milford rampaged into open space through the middle of the Knights defence, his second try saw him find the line after spinning out of tackles to crash over.
The visitors though kept scoring and would lead 16–8 with less than 15 minutes before the break. All of a sudden though, Melbourne scored three tries in about 10 minutes to take a 26–16 half time lead. Lockyer-Azile Foliola was great in the middle, while Watson and Dylan Brettle were pulling the right strings — Brettle scoring twice.
After halftime, it was mostly all Melbourne. The Knights scored one more try, but Watson and Brettle both completed hat tricks for the home team, while Milford scored a deserved try.
The rain came in during the NSW Cup match, which saw the Knights emulate their U21 colleagues and score in the second minute. It was the first of four tries for the visitors as they raced out to a 20–0 lead. Melbourne did start to fight back in the final ten minutes before the break, Josh Durkin darting over after fooling the defence with a massive dummy pass. Then Amaziah Mugha scored to cut the deficit, running into space after Preston Conn broke through in the right channel.
In the second half the visitors extended their lead back out to 26–12 before Melbourne mounted a late comeback. Liam Williams scored to bring the score to 32–12 with seven minutes remaining, and when Trent Toelau scored a brilliant individual try with three minutes to play it looked like it could be a grandstand finish. Alas it wasn’t to be and the Knights defence were able to steady in the final minute, with a last second penalty goal eating up the remaining time.3
The club posted this video from last week’s NSW Cup win over the Roosters too which is well worth a watch:
Next up
Round 15 — bye
Round 16 vs Canberra Raiders – Sunday 21 June 2026, 4:05pm @ AAMI Park
A weekend off… well that’s different. That’s unusual. After 14 weeks Melbourne have probably earnt it. The carnival will be in Victoria straight after the weekend off with Origin II at the MCG on Wednesday 17 June. I’ll be sitting up the back of the Warne Stand having bought the $19 tickets just to avoid the Nine commentary team.
Then, fingers crossed there’s no dramas with a certain Storm player backing up against the Raiders on the Sunday afternoon, in what will hopefully be a special occasion at AAMI Park.
Preview post online Thursday week.
I’ll say less about a few #Kleined moments late in the match after he decided to swallow his whistle, especially having watched four umpires do the same thing the night before to manipulate a result.
I’m not linking to the highlights or reports of that game. Yes, I’m still mad.
Melbourne wasted a gilt-edged chance in the final minutes to potentially level the scores, but alas.