Game 761 – S29E22 Review
Melbourne Storm 22–36 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Understrength, Melbourne looked like they might be able to spring an upset, but eventually they were well-beaten by a team that were able to score all too easily.
Melbourne – 22 (Leo 6', 40', Fa’alogo 21', Hinchey 48' tries; Meaney 3/4 goals)
Canterbury – 36 (Salmon 16', 31', Crichton 70', 78', Rinakama 25', Burton 51', Curran 62' tries; Crichton 4/7 goals)
Maybe stop watching the highlights from when Angus Hinchey scored…
Conceding six seven tries won’t win you football matches
This heading again?
We heard in the post match [last week] that defence would be the focus. If Melbourne can restrict the Bulldogs to less than 20 points, well it might be cause for singing and dancing on Swan St. Whether this Melbourne team can score 20 or more points, that could be even less likely.
Oh okay then. Focus all you want on defence, but at some point the ability to defend needs better examples than what’s being offered by an admittedly inexperienced and understrength Melbourne team.
Of course when news filtered through before the match that Jahrome Hughes would be out… well any hope of Melbourne winning seemed quite far-fetched.
It all started well though, which was a welcome change. Tyran Wishart was getting to dummy half, even having a dash or two, hoping to give some space to rookie halfback Hayden Watson.
Just a quick aside on Watson1 — he started the season in SG Ball Cup with the under 19s, missing the first match of the season in February. He played nine matches (scoring four tries) with that team, including the Storm’s two finals matches. Stepping up to the Jersey Flegg Cup squad he made two appearances there, also scoring four tries. He’s then made the move up to the NSW Cup squad, again scoring four tries in seven appearances. Watson played in the Under-19s Origin match for Queensland again this season, captaining the Maroons in their win against NSW. He also played in that fixture last year when he was at the Burleigh Bears. I was trying to think of Storm players to have played in the NRL while also playing in multiple levels of junior representatives in one season. Sua Fa’alogo didn’t, although he did play Jersey Flegg in the year he made his NRL debut, Greg Inglis famously started 2005 in Queensland Cup, before he was elevated to the NRL team, so yeah… anyone got any ideas if this progression is unique to Watson?2
After trading sets where both teams were able to move the ball around, a penalty against Max King gave Melbourne field position to attack the Bulldogs line. It didn’t take much — Trent Toelau found himself with space to put up a kick for Moses Leo to run and jump against Jacob Kiraz, and even with a little bobble was able to ground the ball over the line. It wasn’t a perfect replica of Jahrome Hughes kicking to Xavier Coates, but it did the job for the Storm to lead 6–0.
It was a bright start for the Storm. Watson was looking good with the ball and the forwards were getting through the line and even getting positive offloads. Fa’alogo almost setting up a chance on the right flank when kicking through for Siulagi Tuimalatu-Brown to potential get behind the Bulldogs, instead forcing a Bulldogs line dropout.
It would have been some kind of start had Melbourne scored a second try inside the first 15 minutes, and perhaps Melbourne should have taken a penalty shot attempt instead of going for a second scrum play in the 12th minute. Instead Joe Chan had a bit of a brainsnap trying to burrow through the ruck in an attempt to score.
That took the air out of Melbourne’s fast start. Canterbury went the length of the field to force a dropout, although STB was able to get high and take it cleanly. The spell was broken though. Melbourne’s defence cracked all too easy.
Weak-gutted dog person
Viliame Kikau has long been a pantomime villain at AAMI Park. Whether it was taking a dive and feigning injury or generally being a menace and a pest, he’s never been an opposition player appreciated by Storm fans. He seems to save some of his best when playing against Melbourne. The way he brushed off Keeley and past Stefano Utoikamanu to bust through the Storm line at midfield… nightmares. Linking up with Stephen Crichton, the Bulldogs skipper was almost stopped, but his forward pass to Jaeman Salmon went unnoticed for the weak-gutted dog person to score too easily.
From the restart it looked for a moment that the Bulldogs would go back-to-back, especially when Salmon found space yet again in the backfield, but this time his kick ahead didn’t quite go to plan. Melbourne were being exposed on the edges in defence.
It looked like that try might have been just a blip for the Storm, especially when the visitors chief whinger Bailey Hayward tested the patience of the referee. Attacking the line, Melbourne’s offloads were working and again it was a Toelau kick that broke the visitors line — this time a deft little grubber for Fa’alogo to race through and score, Connor Tracey nowhere to be seen.
Unfortunately, Melbourne’s 12–6 lead last just a couple of minutes. Having stretched the Storm defence on an extended set, STB was unable to take an intercept, instead Jethro Rinakama scored in the corner. Fa’alogo lucky his last ditch legs first tackle attempt didn’t result in a potential eight-point try.
Melbourne’s situation wasn’t helped when Alec MacDonald made his now weekly handling error from one of his first touches of the ball. It probably wasn’t his fault this week, given that the service from hooker wasn’t the usual standard. A minute later, the visitors took the lead — Salmon again scoring in a set where Kikau wasn’t called for a lost ball, Sutton instead handing the visitors a set restart. Again, it was too easy for Salmon to get to the line, this time getting over the top of Josh King. Melbourne were gassed, but maybe this is again another example where the coaching staff needs to better use the bench rotations.
You can’t give up a half time lead when you don’t lead at half time
Behind for the first time at 16–12, the final eight minutes of the half could have seen the Storm fall further behind. Instead there was a moment of brilliance from Fa’alogo on a kick return — only he was stopped this week. Watson almost broke through until he was manhandled by Kikau. A kick from Toelau looked to have forced a line dropout, only for the intervention of the Bunker. Thankfully that didn’t lead to another Bulldogs try, only through the last-ditch desperate defence of Fa’alogo to put Kiraz into touch when he looked likely to score. Proof again how Fa’alogo’s defence has improved in 2026.
In the shadows of half time, there was a moment when this match might have turned. Fa’alogo looked like he would be the latest Storm player to go down injured, although he would battle on with a leg injury. Then in trying to offload, Cooper Clarke’s pass to Toelau looked dodgy as fuck, but it didn’t need a five minute investigation to know that the Bunker couldn’t rule on it. Hayward was correctly put in the bin for taking out Toelau after he had kicked ahead, but it was all extremely messy. With 100 seconds before the break, Melbourne actually put together a competent power play set with the ball, Toelau and Fa’alogo combining to put Leo over in the corner to score his second try. Meaney’s conversion missed to keep the scores locked at 16–all.
Extra man opportunities
With a man advantage, Melbourne’s first set of the second half ended with a kick that bounced backwards, gaining only 20 metres. That put the Storm on the back foot. Their second set from deep in their own half, was just a matter of trying to recover field position. An error from Simple Jack under pressure from Angus Hinchey was the turnover Melbourne needed.
That error got Melbourne over half way, but it wasn’t until the Storm’s next possession that they finally were in a position to attack the Bulldogs line in the final minute of their man advantage. This time around it was a run from Wishart that broke the game open, exposing offside defenders to race through and send Hinchey over to score under the posts. Melbourne had an unlikely 22–16 lead, but there was too much time remaining.
This is the way an era ends, not with a bang, but a whimper
Melbourne’s slim 2026 finals chances, probably dead before this match, had a brief flicker of light — only to be permanently extinguished in the final 30 minutes of this match. A dropped ball early in the set after points led directly to points for the visitors. Matt Burton (who notched one of his two passes in the set) got the try, in a moment that looked embarrassing for Nick Meaney.
It felt inevitable that even down by two points following Crichton’s missed conversion, that Canterbury were likely to score again and not stop there. The surprise was that it took almost ten minutes. It might have been different if Nick Meaney had taken a tackle instead of throwing an intercepted offload, instead the visitors went the length of the field in an instant. Josh Curran scored the try that put the Bulldogs ahead, the Bunker awarding the try eventually. It took an eternity for Chris Butler to not see a knock-on from Jethro Rinkakama in the aerial contest.
While this inexperienced Melbourne team might have had the enthusiasm for a comeback with 15 minutes remaining, the composure and resilience required just isn’t there. It might be with some of these players in the future, but for now it shows up in circumstances best exemplified by Moses Leo trying to put the ball down in the field of play instead of being tackled in the ingoal area, losing the ball and handing over possession.
The Bulldogs scored a few plays later, Kikau offloading in a tackle where Meaney and MacDonald needed to wrap the fucking ball up. Instead Crichton scored and it was game over with less than ten minutes to play.
Melbourne had chances in the final few minutes, but they were not taken. It was the visitors that muscled up in defence and then sealed their win with a second try to Crichton.
Sure it might have been a good overall effort from the Storm, but too many times there have been moments in matches this season that have exposed a lack of something in this squad — be it experience, effort or attitude, attention to detail — or just the innate ability that sport has of exposing weakness in mind and body.
Interchange watch
Post match quotes
Not sure about the comedy stylings of Craig Bellamy this week, the quip about the teddy bears… about as good as the pictorial idiom used above:
I’ve seen about ten other games where we’re leading at half time, or in a good position and we just can’t go on with it in the second half. I was pretty happy with how the team came together, we had a lot of guys out, I thought in that context it was a reasonable performance. But when you have a look at how we played, a few of their tries were soft defence from us. For me that’s a disappointing thing — we just need to toughen up a bit.
There was a few things that might not have gone our way tonight, it is what it is.
Next year and the year after, that experience will be really hand for us, but it’s hard to see past the results at the moment. Our guys are trying hard, but we just seem to go through these periods in the second half where we let a lot of soft tries in.
We’re out there to play for each other and our fans, it’s not as it we’re going on holidays — we’ll prepare the best we can.
With the injuries we’ve got, it’s been forced on us [to play younger players] — they’re getting valuable experience.
A bit pissed off [not playing finals], but it is what it is. My grandkids have got a couple of teddy bears so I might go home and punch the shit out of them. But at the end of the day, it is what it is. We’ve been rocking and rolling at the edge there for probably a month, so it’s going to be disappointing not being there. It will be interesting to see how I handle it when the finals start and we’re not there. Might just go for a walk.
We’ve always prided ourselves on how we’ve played during the season so that we’re there at the end — unfortunately this season, I dunno — there’s been a few things out of our control that probably have contributed to it, but our defence hasn’t been up to the standard of what we want.
On Hayden Watson:
For a halfback he’s fairly quiet around the group, he’s not an out there kid. When it’s time to train, he zeroes in. That was probably, as far as a halfback goes, that was as good of a debut as I’ve seen from a halfback, especially at his age. He’s come in and done a great job for us.
Josh King was an interesting listen:
I was proud of the group for the majority of the game. The debutants really went after the game. With the changes that we’ve had and the senior players that we’ve lost, I thought we really attacked the game. There’s certainly things we need to look at — the personnel we had out tonight is no excuse, we’re a better team than that and we need to be able to stop some of those tries.
Stat offloads
Of the 26 NRL-era matches that have finished with a score of 36–22, Melbourne have now featured in two of them, previously Melbourne had lost to the Northern Eagles by that score in June 2002.
Cameron Smith played with 167 different Storm teammates. Of those teammates, the only ones playing at AAMI Park in this match were Max King and Kurt Mann. Every single player that played for Melbourne played their first NRL matches for Melbourne from 2021 onwards.
Missing their first choice players on both wings, one centre, both halves, hooker and both second-row forwards, Melbourne fielded a team with seven players having played less than 10 NRL matches for the club, and an average of 70 NRL matches experience across the entire 17 players who played. Trent Loiero was the longest tenured Storm player on the field having made his NRL debut with the club in 2021,3 while Josh King and Nick Meaney were the only players with more than 170 NRL matches under their belts.
Angus Hinchey scored his first NRL try, taking his career tally to six points after his goal against the Dragons in his NRL debut.
With his 29th career NRL try, Sua Fa’alogo went past former Storm players Kenny Bromwich (28 in 216 appearances), Kevin Proctor (28 in 179 appearances), and Jake Webster (28 in 49 appearances).4
This was Canterbury’s highest score of the season. Their previous best was 32 points against the Panthers (round 6) and Tigers (round 20).
Fa’alogo was the only Storm player to be credited with more than 100 run metres for Melbourne.
Josh King captained Melbourne for the second time in his career — the 27th club captain previously tossed the coin in round 27, 2023 against the Broncos.
Was it worth it?
Plenty of Canterbury fans inside AAMI Park this week — funny how that happens when this match isn’t relegated to a Thursday night. In the end 19,243 through the gates which is just about Melbourne’s average for 2026. The two crowds at the lower end of the scale this season are going to mean the season average is below 20,000.
As for the match itself, maybe it’s time to acknowledge that like Ashley Klein, Gerard Sutton seems to ensure that everyone has a bad time. Chris Butler didn’t help in the Bunker either taking an age to make a few decisions on his review. It meant this one lingered longer than it needed to at a chilly AAMI Park.5
Melbourne’s poor season might cost them a few of these “prime time” spots in 2027, which won’t necessarily be a bad thing as long as they’re replaced by Saturday matches and not Friday 6pm or Sunday 6:15pm matches.
4/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
See round 1 for the ratings explanations.
Round 22
7 — Sua Fa’alogo
6 — Trent Toelau, Angus Hinchey
5 — Tyran Wishart, Cooper Clarke, Hayden Watson, Trent Loiero
4 — Moses Leo, Manaia Waitere, Stefano Utoikamanu, Josh King
3 — Siulagi Tuimalatu-Brown, Joe Chan, Alec MacDonald, Oryn Keeley
2 — Nick Meaney
NR — Jai Bowden6
Around the grounds
Such is the poor scheduling of the NSW Cup, Melbourne’s reserves played out at Seabrook Reserve on Friday afternoon. It was a grinding opening, with both teams unable to score, even if the visitors had the bulk of the possession. Eventually, Melbourne cracked first — Jed Reardon scored, and the Bulldogs opened up a 14–0 half time lead. Missing a bunch of players to the NRL squad, the second half was a little better for the Storm. Davvy Moale crashed over to score just before the hour mark to cut the Bulldogs lead to eight points, but the visitors hit back straight after. Amaziah Murgha scored his fifth try of the season with about ten minutes to go — grounding the ball over the line after Joseph Litadamu had broken down the left wing and popped a grubber through to beat the fullback, but that was the last score of the day.
On Saturday afternoon in the winter sunshine at Broadmeadows, it was a good match between the Storm and Bulldogs under-21 squads. Canterbury took an early lead until Melbourne levelled through a converted try to Victory Isaako. The visitors though would retake the lead, heading to the sheds at 12–6 up on the scoreboard. After the break, three Storm tries — including a double to edge forward Ronnic Starkey, had Melbourne up 22–16 with 20 minutes remaining. It looked like Melbourne could hold on and take their first win since June in this competition, but with time almost up, the Bulldogs scored a converted try to level the scores and share the competition points.7
Next up
Round 23 vs Manly Warringah Sea Eagles – Saturday 8 August 2026, 3:00pm (AEST) @ HBF Park, Perth
Another chance for Melbourne to spoil a potential finals-bound team’s chances. Oh… it’s in Perth for $ome reason. It would be nice if Melbourne don’t finish lower than 12th, but to do that they’re going to need maybe two wins from these final four matches.
Preview post online Thursday.
Seemingly the first Geelong-born NRL player, even if he didn’t grow up there.
There’s probably players at other clubs who have done this, but meh.
Can’t remember a previous occasion where the lowest cap number for a Storm player on the field was in the 200s. Loiero in player ⚡️212.
Tries and appearances only in Storm colours.
The second half alone took an hour to play 40 minutes.
Only nine minutes on his NRL debut — he did have some good touches though.
Amusingly, Melbourne were awarded a penalty 57m out from the Bulldogs line just before the final siren. The attempt only just missing, while the Bulldogs did try and run the length on the return, eventually ending up around midfield.