Game 756 – S29E16 Review
Melbourne Storm 42–20 Canberra Raiders
Down 0–16 inside the first quarter of the match, level at half time, then a second half shut out of the Raiders in another Munster milestone victory. Just rugby league in 2026.
Melbourne – 42 (Warbrick 22', 40', 60', Lisati 24', Munster 28', Leo 68', Fa’alogo 71', Toelau 79' tries; Fa’alogo 4/6, Grant 0/1, Munster 1/1 goals)
Canberra – 20 (Tamale 3', Pattie 9', Savage 17', Timoko 36' tries; Sanders 2/4 goals)
Eleven minutes of highlights? That’s a lot.
The match started at 4:05pm right?
Someone told the Storm that this match didn’t start until the FIFA Hydration Break didn’t they?
From the moment that Moses Leo lost the ball on the second tackle that Melbourne had the Steeden, the Storm as a collective looked off. Maybe they’d been at the pub with the MOB… or maybe Canberra, a team that hadn’t scored in the first half in their previous two matches, just burst out of the blocks totally fired up.
Their first try was well-worked in that they targeted the weakest link in the Storm defensive line — the makeshift combination on Melbourne’s right edge outside Jahrome Hughes. At some point Joe Chan might learn how to play defence as a centre, but I’m not holding my breath. Hughes rushing the opposition halfback might have been the move, but the lack of cohesiveness of the defence was extremely concerning.
The visitors didn’t go back-to-back, but it almost felt like they did. They were dominant and Melbourne looked disinterested. If you aren’t fielding a high kick on the full, that’s okay, but WRAP THE BALL UP. Ethan Sanders kick came down with the visitors and Melbourne missed four tackles that could have shut the play down before Hudson Young put in a second kick that seemingly bamboozled Hughes who stood almost motionless on the flank — only Ativalu Lisati seemed interested in stopping the Raiders players from grounding the ball, but he couldn’t impact the play. Owen Pattie had scored and Melbourne looked to be in deep trouble. Again, credit to the green team, but uggh.
The green team kept coming and almost caught out the Storm again on their next possession, this time Trent Toelau was able to get back to defend a second kick, but the less said about his pass over to Jack Howarth the better. I know I had a conniption seeing it drift ever so slightly above the outstretched hand of Xavier Savage.
That almost seemed to spark Melbourne into some kind of action. Will Warbrick started to find space on the flank, but the play broke down on the last tackle when a kick from Hughes was easily taken and Chan gave away a penalty for a slight tackle in the air.
Runs from Sua Fa’alogo and Toelau started to generate some space for Melbourne, but their ability to play fast was hindered and Mr Set Restart has been shamed into inaction in recent weeks.1 With their first real attacking field position for some time, Melbourne squandered it. Worse still, Jack Howarth’s pass to Moses Leo was telegraphed and intercepted by Savage to run the length of the field.2
Enter Harry Grant
After going all out and doing everything other than scoring in Origin II at the MCG, the injection of the Storm skipper after 20 minutes seemed to change the entire nature of this match. His impact was immediate. Melbourne worked over the Raiders through the middle and Grant combined with Hughes and Fa’alogo to catch out the visitors for Warbrick to score his first for the afternoon. It was a near perfect execution of a set play.
It was back-to-back tries for the home team when Warbrick brought in a Hughes bomb and was able to offload to Ativalu Lisati. Warbrick was far too good for Savelio Tamale in the air, the Olympian bringing back the Storm 2025 cheat code, even without Xavier Coates on the other wing.
A mistake from the restart put Melbourne on the hunt for a third try. They almost had it twice through Fa’alogo brilliance. The Storm got it through Cameron Munster. It was strength, it was purpose. It wasn’t flashy this time — capitalising on a fast play-the-ball from Howarth, he powered through a tackle to plant the ball down. Fa’alogo couldn’t convert to give Melbourne a lead, doinking the ball off the uprights to keep the scores locked at 16–all.
When both teams foolishly burned their captain’s challenge a minute apart from each other,3 this match threatened to devolve into another 2026 slopfest, especially with 32 points scored in as many minutes. So of course the visitors scored. Who did they target in defence on the Storm line? Yeah, the combination of Lisati, Hughes and Chan were found grasping at shadows instead of Matthew Timoko. It was bad defence.
If Melbourne’s heads dropped after conceding that try in the shadows of half time, they didn’t show it. Hey that’s resilience. Maybe that has actually returned since the dark days of April. Especially when Fa’alogo and Leo turned defence into attack with Leo gaining mega metres on a kick return. Canberra should have had a man put in the penalty box, but instead Grant decided that a try would be more fun. The skipper put the Raiders on the back foot, then passed it for the ball to go through the hands for Warbrick to show he had enough strength to stand in a tackle and score. 20–all after 40 minutes and both teams would have fancied a run of points in the second stanza.
Wait, who ordered The Grind?
After a point a minute in the first half, with eight tries — what the hell… no scoring for almost 20 minutes? It was the grind. It was retro rugby league. Well kinda.
It was a battle of the bombs. Hughes for Melbourne. Sanders for Canberra.
Do we need to talk about the Hughes offload to Fa’alogo while they were in the in-goal area with three Canberra players? No. No we don’t. Crazy times.
There was no flow during this period either as the teams cancelled each other out. There would need to be a spark to wake this match from it’s stalemate of errors. It came from a familiar method and a regular source. Will Warbrick in the eastern corner at the Swan Street end of AAMI Park.
The full set began with a great run from Munster, followed by a belated penalty against the Raiders for their poor tackling technique. With field position, Melbourne had the impetus and Hughes pressed the cheat code and Warbrick did what he does best.
Sinking the Raiders
There’s a reason why the Raiders are below Melbourne on the ladder and now sit 16th. The final 20 minutes showed why. Their defence pretty much fell apart while Melbourne’s attack shone. The Storm middles, often maligned this year, laid the foundation — Grant obviously pulled the right reins. In defence, Melbourne were able to force errors — the scramble was working well.
If the match was in the balance with Melbourne up by four points, at ten points the Storm’s advantage felt more secure. Leo’s eighth try of the year coming with 12 minutes to play was similarly constructed to the way the Raiders scored earlier in the match. This time it was Melbourne’s right flank taking advantage of the numbers.
A second try came from the restart after the Raiders were again beaten to the ball by Warbrick — Munster gamed a new set of six, then threw the final pass to Fa’alogo for the Victorian to score his 13th try of the year.
That probably should have been the end of the scoring for the match, but Melbourne had one more in them, Trent Toelau scoring his first try for the Storm — again the Storm turning defence into attack. Melbourne’s blitz after Harry Grant entered the fray was 42–4.
Interchange watch
Not much to report this week. Harry Grant sat the first 20 minutes and looked broken later in the match but stayed on the field. Stefano Utoikamanu played the first 49 minutes before heading off for Jack Hetherington, while Alec MacDonald replaced Josh King during the first half and probably had his best match of the season so far making 27 tackles without a miss and going on seven runs for 60 metres in 34 minutes of action. Cooper Clarke played the first 56 minutes before earning a rest for the fairly anonymous Shawn Blore, while Josh King returned midway through the second half. Utoikamanu returned for the final ten minutes. Jahrome Hughes and Trent Loiero both got an early marks. I guess that strategy feels more coherent, although that was a heavier workload for Utoikamanu than other matches.
Post match quotes
I think the Old Boys might have put Belsa in a good mood by the time he got to the press conference:
There was a lot of points scored out there, but after our start when it was 16–0, that’s obviously not the way we wanted to start — you don’t really think about how can we get back from this, you think about what’s important for us now to steady our game. Obviously we done that really well and pulled away at the end — I’m really proud of the guys.
I didn’t think we were playing that poorly to be behind by that much.
When Harry [Grant] came on, he added his know-how and how the team needs to play — he played a great role.
The chat around the timing of the byes was interesting too.
Stat offloads
There have been 10 NRL matches to finish with a score of 42–20 and Melbourne have now featured as winners of the last two. The club’s previous win by this score was against the Warriors on Anzac Day in 2021.
The last Storm match to be level at half time was just under a year ago against the Cowboys. When the teams are level at half time, the Storm have won 35 of 59 NRL matches, with one draw back in 1998.
20–all is the highest scoring drawn first half in club history. The previous highest score with the teams tied at the break was 18–all (vs Dolphins in 2024, and vs Dragons in 2023).
Will Warbrick scored his fifth hat-trick for Melbourne in his 71st appearance. He now has 51 tries to move up into 20th position for most tries for the club.
Cameron Munster’s conversion was his first goal in the NRL since 2023. His career goalscoring record for the Storm is 47 goals from 81 attempts. His try was the 65th of his Storm career, closing the gap to his fellow podcasters to seven behind Jahrome Hughes and 12 behind Ryan Papenhuyzen.
Trent Toelau scored his first NRL try for Melbourne in his fourth appearance. He score one try in 14 matches for Penrith. He’s the 174th of the 251 players to score a try for the club.
Was it worth it?
The sun was out, there were plenty of Melbourne Old Boys in town and it was a major milestone match for the club…
I mean it’s a pity it took the introduction of Harry Grant to wake up Melbourne after conceding 16 points in the opening 20 minutes. Hey, you can’t give up a half time lead too if you don’t lead at half time.
With over 19,000 through the gates at AAMI Park, that’s a reasonable result too. I’m wondering what the optimal time for Storm matches home and away against the Raiders. I’m thinking it’s probably Saturday evenings so that fans from either Canberra or Melbourne can do a road trip with one night’s accommodation, but maybe the earlier Sunday afternoon timeslot would also be worthwhile.4
To score eight tries against the Raiders who have been complaining about the Storm’s tactics for 23 years while doing the exact same thing. Well that’s a Sunday Funday.5
7/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
See round 1 for the ratings explanations.
Round 16
9 — Will Warbrick,
8 — Stefano Utoikamanu
7 — Moses Leo, Cameron Munster, Cooper Clarke, Trent Loiero, Harry Grant
6 — Sua Fa’alogo, Alec MacDonald
5 — Trent Toelau, Jack Howarth, Jahrome Hughes, Josh King, Ativalu Lisati, Jack Hetherington
4 — Shawn Blore
3 — Joe Chan
Around the grounds
It was a good morning, but a bad afternoon for the Storm U21 squad. They got on the scoreboard very early through Talas Abell and took a 20–0 lead to half time, scoring four tries all to the river end. But when the clock ticked past noon for the second half, the Raiders struck. Two length of the field tries — the first from a kick return, the second from an intercept — got them back into the match. Capitalising on Storm errors they took the lead with 15 or so minutes remaining at 22–20. They then ramped up their defence to quash any chance of points at the Swan St end of Gosch’s Paddock…
But then just as all hope seemed lost for Melbourne, a scrum 10m out from the Raiders line set up one last chance and from the scrum win, fullback Waka Hammond brushed past one tackle then carried three over the line to slam the ball down in the corner to put the Storm up by two points. The match though had one final twist. I’m not sure descriptions will do it justice… to the video:
Moving inside AAMI Park for the NSW Cup, the Raiders scored on their left flank before almost anyone had taken their seats.
But Melbourne hit back soon after — a charging run from Davvy Moale set up the Storm’s first try in the left channel through Angus Hinchey. Moale had steamed through the middle, finally showing a glimpse of his NRL quality to give the Storm a 6–4 lead.
From the restart, aided by an offload from Moale, and a set restart — Melbourne went back-to-back via a slashing run from Amaziah Murgha to score under the posts. The visitors kept coming hard at Melbourne and were forcing errors from the boys in purple. There were a couple of close calls, but a 40/20 kick caught out Murgha and the Storm cracked, this time on the Raiders right flank.
Behind again on the scoreboard, Melbourne took the lead through this try awarded to Liam Williams, after the dangerous second kick from Preston Conn.
That piece of razzle-dazzle football provided the Storm with a half time lead, but after the break the visitors exposed the Storm’s soft defence. They punched through the middle in back-to-back sets to set up tries.
A neat little grubber from dummy half by Gabriel Satrick saw Melbourne retake the lead, but it was brief — another pair of tries, then a third saw the visitors march to a winning lead.
Playing fast and loose, Murgha scored his second try of the afternoon, slamming the ball down over the line in a two-man tackle with just under ten minutes remaining. Down by ten points though, there would be no comeback. It was a messy final few minutes with the Storm reverting to panic football, and they couldn’t get over the line to set up a grandstand finish.
Next up
Round 17 vs Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles – Saturday 27 June 2026, 7:30pm @ 4 Pines Park
Well to #FortressShithole we go for a Saturday evening soirée. Sigh. Manly, in their 70th season have been playing in an updated version of their 1996 jersey which creates a clash with most of the competition, so instead this week they’re playing in the Ghost of Christmas Past for Storm fans — a new version of their 2008 NRL Grand Final jersey. Maybe Melbourne should do likewise and try to reclaim their 2008 clash jersey last seen thusly:
Yes I will keep posting that image, yes it’s funny and yes Maria Folau once commented and laughed when I used it. Because in the immortal words of Ilya Bryzgalov:
Preview post online Thursday.
Or at least less action — Todd Smith only called three set restarts for the entire match. Two of them came in just one minute during the first half. Editor’s note: this is the only mention of the referee this week for the entire review. That’s not to say Todd Smith had a good one, more that the teams seemingly adjusted to his ineptitude.
Going to gloss over Sua Fa’alogo giving up on the chase that might have kept Savage from scoring under the posts.
Interesting that a clear 2003 style grapple tackle was ignored by the Bunker.
Should I ignore a couple of Raiders fans doing a very dubious arm gesture after Savage scored? It looked very odd.
A note on the Nine and Fox League commentators — we know you’re not at AAMI Park. It’s insulting to viewers that you pretend you are there. Surely the next broadcast rights agreement needs to have minimum production standards baked into the contract.