Game 762 – S29E23 Review
Melbourne Storm 42–20 Manly Warringah Sea Eagles
Melbourne pull out a 14–nil dickheading when they were lucky to be zero, piling on 42 unanswered points to end Manly’s season. A bipolar footy team on a bipolar weather day in Perth.
Melbourne – 42 (Wishart 34', Watson 39', Keeley 57', Fa’alogo 59', Leo 68', Tuimalatu-Brown 73' tries; Meaney 9/9 goals)
Manly – 20 (Wakeham 4', Koula 22', Wilson 78' tries; Fogarty 4/4 goals)
Funny how the highlights start almost four minutes into an eleven minute video…
Is there a score less than zero?
It’s hard to think of a poorer start for Melbourne in almost all areas of the game than the opening 30-odd minutes of this match. After completing their first set in possession, Melbourne stood by and watched Haumole Olakau’atu go on a run that went 43 metres1 — more than most of the sets Melbourne had in possession. Indeed that singlular run was more metres gained than in the first 33 minutes by any Melbourne player let alone a forward.
Manly mightn’t have scored on the back of that set — they scored after forcing a line-dropout with a horrible error from Moses Leo handing the Beach Birds an easy try. Brandon Wakeham taking the points after Leo couldn’t keep the ball after crashing down trying to take a kick and Sua Fa’alogo unable to clean up the loose ball.
A switched on Melbourne might have capitalised on a error from Tyran Wishart’s brother-in-law when Reuben Garrick let the ball bounce from the restart, but alas not. On an extended set, the Storm went backwards on an excursion from the returning Cameron Munster, then were forced into error and a turnover when a Wishart pass from dummy-half when through the hands over the head of Hayden Watson, Stefano Utoikamanu unable to collect the loose ball.
Manly meanwhile looked like they could bust Melbourne open through the middle, the edges and probably out wide if they tried. They did attempt that in the 14th minute to spark the first controversial moment of this match.
I’m going to let rookie referee Kieren Irons off on the call to put Siulagi Tuimalatu-Brown in the sin bin. His hit on Blake Wilson looked spectacular and maybe ever so slightly late. But the Bunker official Liam Kennedy — you should know better. If that’s a sin bin for apparently “late, dangerous and have a high risk of injury when he hits the ground”; then how does someone like Victor Radley still have a playing contract? On the outrage scale, the sin bin probably isn’t that high, especially given that putting STB in the naughty corner isn’t the worst thing for Melbourne’s defence. Even if Manly eventually took advantage of Nick Meaney’s inability to defend that side of the field to score against the 12-man defensive line.2
Thanks in part to the stoppages caused by Melbourne’s errors, much of the period STB was off the field seeped away — it was the final moments that Manly scored their second try through Tolu Koula, the Beach Birds capitalising on extra numbers on their left flank for a 12–0 lead.
Manly took the two from a penalty to take their lead out to the 14–0 scoreline in the 27th minute. Again it wasn’t a great call from Liam Kennedy in the Bunker that conjured that penalty, but whatever.
From the 17th minute through the 33rd minute, Melbourne didn’t complete a set in possession. Their crimes against rugby league were:
a dropped ball in the ruck on first tackle from Moses Leo;
a horrible forward pass from Tyran Wishart, his second for the day;
an ugly (uncalled) forward pass from Trent Loiero that was dropped by Oryn Keeley just as Melbourne got over halfway for the first time in ages; and
yet another (uncalled) forward pass from Hayden Watson that was dropped by Oryn Keeley.
It took a fourth tackle kick from Hayden Watson for Melbourne to finally complete a set in possession — their completion rate was woeful. If there was a score less than zero possible in a rugby league game, Melbourne deserved to be in the negative.
Suddenly there was a try… and a second?
If there was any Storm player at least trying to turn things around for Melbourne, it was Sua Fa’alogo. He tried a chip and chase but had his path blocked in the middle of the field. No biggie, he tried again the next time Melbourne had the ball in Manly’s territory — this time he had caught out the defence with Lehi Hopoate in the front line and the bounce of the Steeden favoured future Bear Tyran Wishart to score under the posts.
As the weather turned bleak, Melbourne’s afternoon suddenly looked so much better. Angus Hinchey and Cooper Clarke had offered the Storm plenty through the middle coming off the bench for Josh King and Stefano Utoikamanu. Their enthusiasm for hard work, well it seemed to catch on. Some kicks that somehow bounced back to Melbourne players which weren’t played at by Manly did have them stretched nonetheless. Melbourne weren’t aided when Fa’alogo was off for a HIA late in the first half, the incident that precipitated that request went unpunished.3
With Manly now throwing forward passes, Melbourne had one last chance to attack before the break in great field position, especially when the set was extended. Hayden Watson — your time is now‽ Slicing through the line, making players miss tackles, stepping through tackles to score your first NRL try. The kid is NINETEEN. He graduated high school last year. How fucken good.
Oh he’s signed until the end of the 2030 season. Sure. Love it.
Melbourne heading to the sheds at 14–12 down felt obscene given the first 33 minutes of the first half.
Illusions of competency
The sunshine that greeted the players after halftime seemed to infect Manly with the same virus that infected Melbourne in the first half — maybe running towards The Shed end at Perth Oval has some kind of weird energy.4 Corey Waddell was penalised and put on report for a shoulder charge for a hit on Angus Hinchey. Melbourne were fortunate to receive the penalty given Hinchey has already lost the ball before Waddell’s shoulder contacted his head. In any event, it was 14–all thanks to the boot of Meaney.
A handling error from Fa’alogo under a Jamal Fogarty kick gave Manly a chance to attack inside the redzone, but Melbourne were able to exhibit the illusion of competency in defence and force an error. Clarke was doing his best impression of Olakau’atu’s first half run to relieve the pressure on Melbourne with the ball in hand.
Again though, the weirdness of running towards The Shed end infected Manly — a lost ball, a mishandled Fa’alogo grubber by Garrick and Melbourne were on the march. The fullback went close to scoring, a Munster kick had the defence confounded and a penalty was blown for offside. Melbourne took the lead? Seemed strange, but okay.
Melbourne’s starting middle forwards were all back on the field and seemingly had some spring in their legs, as did Shawn Blore and Keeley — Melbourne getting a roll-on through the middle with the Storm building through some nice touches from Wishart, Munster and Watson.5 It was Fa’alogo’s ability to create confusion in the defensive line that broke Manly — drift across the field he linked up with Keeley, the former Red Fish forward broke three tackles to score his second Storm try. Melbourne had scored 22 unanswered points. It wasn’t shock and awe, but it was indeed a confusing time.
The Sua Fa’alogo Show
Three try assists, three line break assists. 116 run metres, four tackle breaks. He might have had a couple of handling errors, but this match was the Sua Fa’alogo Show.
The diminutive fullback scored Melbourne’s fourth try of the afternoon. This time it was a raid down the left flank — he was involved early in the movement from inside Melbourne’s half of the field, putting Joe Chan on the outside of his opposite number, Chan’s offload to Leo was perfectly timed and from there it was shut the gate. Leo timed his pass back to Fa’alogo for the showman to score his 16th try of the season.
Effectively Melbourne had scored 28 points in around 25 minutes.
Another penalty goal, another two points — maybe Nick Meaney likes the look of his future home ground. Melbourne wasted their captain’s challenge on a knock-on by Watson, but the Storm were able to defend their missteps, forcing errors from the Sea Eagles. Then capitalising on the scoreboard. Again it was Fa’alogo — even when he hesitates, the defence is confused. Moses Leo dived over in the corner after beating two defenders. He has his moments the Olympian, but he’s shown more than enough improvement this year.
Melbourne had the result wrapped up entering the final ten minutes — they took their unanswered points tally to 42 through another converted try. STB getting across the stripe for his second career try, outpointing Wilson in an aerial contest from a Watson kick.
Wilson got his own back a few minutes later, scoring in the corner to end Melbourne’s points explosion. It might have been their own highlight of the second half.
A note on the indigenous jersey — the white numbers look so much better than the yellow ones on the home jersey. I’m probably going to say this every time.
Post match quotes
I think Craig Bellamy likes sitting next to Munster in the press conference:
Yeah we didn’t get a good start, but I still thought our effort even during that period wasn’t too bad. The real plus for me today was those young blokes — when we got to 14–nil down, they didn’t go into their shells.
I’m happy with the guys — they just kept trying and doing what we practiced during the week. The [completion rate] was disappointing, but for most of it we defended those errors well. The amount of mistakes we made in the first half, we did well with our defence — that really helped us towards the end of the game.
They’re all fitting in there reasonably well [the younger players], but our senior players really played solid roles for us. You just know what you’re going to get from them every week.
The effort for the 80 minutes was really good.
He [Munster] wasn’t on the list to return to be honest, but he put his hand up that he wanted to play. I was doubtful, but he’s a determined bastard. He’s just a great clubman who cares about his team and his teammates.
Stat offloads
Melbourne have now featured in three of the NRL-era’s 11 matches to have finished 42–20, including the match against the Raiders in June.
Melbourne have been behind six times at halftime in matches this season, this is their first win.
It’s the seventh time Melbourne have scored 40 or more points against Manly.
Nick Meaney’s nine goals from nine attempts for 18 points is the most points in a match by a Storm player this season. It’s only the 19th time in club history that nine or more goals have been scored in a match.
Siulagi Tuimalatu-Brown is now the ninth Storm player to be put in the sin bin in a match against Manly.
Was it worth it?
Have I been to Perth? No.
Will I go when Melbourne are the away team against the Bears? Yeah, probably.
As you might have gathered, I’m opposed to the Melbourne Storm’s very wealthy owners selling a match outside of Victoria. As evil as News Corp are, they at least never countenanced that fuckery as an idea when they owned the Storm. This is now the 11th year6 that the owners have pulled this stunt and I will always be mad about it.
So instead of my continual negativity in this space, here’s Meg from Thunderchat:
For the first time ever, I get to write about a Melbourne Storm match AFTER a win — yippee! I was very kindly asked to provide commentary on the Perth/Storm experiment, and I am more than happy to oblige.
Prior to this weekend, the farthest west I had travelled was Adelaide. Late 2025 I had my yearly breakdown about the club sending a home game somewhere that wasn’t AAMI Park — but this time it was Perth, and I was suddenly intrigued. A city I disregarded for years, the butt of my bad player/team jokes, I finally had a valid excuse to see it for myself. The stars aligned (my cohost gifted me a hotel stay and game tickets) and now we’re here!
After the season we’ve been having, the concept of a 7am flight and a 4.5 hour trip felt nauseating. Nonetheless, we persevere for this team, and the trek west commenced. A flight delay in the morning meant we missed out on open training on Friday — we trusted that Saturday would get us into the spirit of the Melbourne Storm festivities.
That being said, the festivities felt difficult to get into. Watching a home game in a neutral venue that’s really just helping showcase the introduction of a new team is deeply bizarre. They were constantly cutting to Bears officials throughout the game with zero context, their merch stand monstering the Storm one. There’s also something to be said for playing a home game during Indigenous Round in a state you’re not based in, but there’s not enough words here to truly unpack that. No banner,7 no live Thunderstruck, no Storm Man? I was clicking my heels three times.
Full credit to the city, Perth’s turbulent weather had us feeling perfectly at home. The skies opening for the millionth time as Wishart scored felt nearly biblical. Everything that unfolded after that moment was a sight for sore eyes (besides any potential injuries, in which I kept my eyes shut). After begging weekly for this team to behave like they’ve met prior to the start of the match, it seems like they’re starting to put the pieces together. In round 23, before a bye, with three games left to play. Better late than never, I guess!! Jokes aside — to put on 42 points after that start and the current state of this team’s lineup is absolutely joyous. Had me doing cartwheels! We had some really beautiful glimpses into the future with Hayden Watson’s first NRL try, and Hinchey/Clarke being angelic little forwards. Also, I am thankful every week that Oryn Keeley joined us early.
I will say, my sincerest condolences to the Perth locals who thought they would be witnessing a high quality NRL match — anything with 13 penalties, 24 errors and a dubious sin bin makes for poor viewing on a Saturday afternoon. But we won, so I’m not complaining too much.
Is it worth it? Short answer, yes. Longer answer — I would travel to the ends of the Earth to watch Manly lose (and more importantly, our team win).
Thanks Meg!
Like the people who went to the match over on the west coast, I too was sitting at a rainy football stadium watching an incompetent football team in action.
Thankfully I had just enough data signal this time around to watch all the action from the west coast.
5/10
Storm Machine Player of the Year
See round 1 for the ratings explanations.
Round 23
7 — Sua Fa’alogo, Cooper Clarke
6 — Hayden Watson, Stefano Utoikamanu, Oryn Keeley, Angus Hinchey
5 — Cameron Munster, Shawn Blore, Moses Leo, Siulagi Tuimalatu-Brown, Nick Meaney, Tyran Wishart, Josh King, Trent Loiero, Joe Chan, Trent Toelau
NR — Davvy Moale
Around the grounds
so nice, we had to beat our rivals thrice ⚡️
It was a Sunday funday out at Seabrook Reserve. The Under-21s overcame a 16–8 halftime deficit after Victory Isaako had opened the scoring for the Storm early on. Manly scored twice and added a third just before the change of ends.
After the break though, it was all Melbourne especially in the last 15 minutes as they blitzed the visitors with five tries. Isaako scored two more tries in the second half to take his personal tally to 20 points to give the Storm a big win.
In the NSW Cup match, Marion Seve actually played a game of rugby league. In 2026. The sports goggles were back as he scored the opening try against Manly at Broadmeadows in his first action since February. He was instrumental in the next try too from the restart, finding open space from a Amaziah Murgha offload, setting up on the left edge for Eli Morris to race away and score.
The visitors hit back hard — two tries levelled the scores at 10–all, which was the halftime score in the drizzle.
Melbourne scored just after the break when, on a broken final tackle play, a little grubber kick from Amaziah Murgha near the line was ignored by the Manly defence, letting winger Alize Clark to pounce and score untouched.
Two tries from the visitors gave them a narrow 18–16 lead, with Ted Hoy somehow missing a fairly easy conversion attempt from just to the left of the posts proving costly for Manly. Melbourne took back the lead with a try to Murgha after Keagan Russell-Smith broke the line, while a fifth Storm try in the final stages to Liam Williams sealed the win. Melbourne with their sixth win of the season meaning they will avoid the wooden spoon in the NSW Cup competition, although they might struggle to improve on their position on the ladder before the end of the season.
Next up
Round 24 — bye weekend
Round 25 vs Penrith Panthers – Thursday 20 August 2026, 7:50pm @ AAMI Park
Cameron Munster had an interesting Sunday afternoon — he was at first charged with a grade two dangerous contact charge for his first half tackle on Taniela Paseka, the charge later downgraded to grade one following the full details of the medical report. No comment about General Bias this week necessary then. Of course there was absolutely no charge of any description for STB trucking Blake Wilson into next week.
In any event, Melbourne get a rare August bye and will return for a Thursday night match against the Panthers. The premiers-elect might start resting some of their players, but who really knows. After the Wahs knocked them off over the ditch, they might not have the minor premiership sown up, so maybe Melbourne will face a full strength pink Panther squad.
Preview post online Thursday week.
Sure Josh King was called offside by the referee, but c’mon defence.
A defensive edge of Oryn Keeley, Hayden Watson and Nick Meaney is ripe for exploitation by any attacking unit.
An accidental crusher-style tackle — bit like how STB shouldn’t have been punished earlier I guess.
That weirdness permeated to the Fox League commentary studio in Sydney — did Matt Russell accidentally call Cameron Munster Cum Munster in the 44th minute?
Wishart, Munster and Watson — not quite a magic circle law firm.
Including Magic Round nonsense.
Only HULK. Editor: sorry, couldn’t resist.