The Storm and Roosters1 have been building a burgeoning rivalry over the past few seasons, it might not have the same mutual hatred or longevity as the Manly-Melbourne rivalry, but there’s some good spice between the teams.
This week I’ve been thinking about the three games in 2017, 2018 and 2019 that the Roosters sent Melbourne to play against them in Adelaide – so given it’s a short week, rather than watching the full games, let’s just refresh the memory with the highlights packages.2
S20E16 – Melbourne Storm @ Sydney Roosters
This was Melbourne’s first game back in Adelaide since 2011, on a Saturday night in June with a healthy crowd of 21,492 in attendance.3
The highlights package explains that Melbourne were missing Slater, Cronk and Cameron Smith, handing a club debut to Jahrome Hughes in jersey 22, and third career games for Brodie Croft and Brandon Smith. Melbourne were on a four match winning streak in first place on the NRL ladder, with Easts in second.4
Melbourne should have had the two points in the bag after Hughes scored with just over ten minutes to go, but two tries, the last converted by Michael Gordon at full time sent this one to #GoldenGallop. The highlights don’t show much of the golden point period, but there were no opportunities for either team to properly set up for a chance of a field goal. Melbourne had two completed sets, both ending in fairly tame Croft midfield high kicks to an opposition winger not under any real pressure.
At the end of the third Roosters set, an out of position Mitchell Pearce kicked a clutch field goal to end the match, leaving Melbourne to ponder what went wrong in the final ten minutes.
Sydney – 25 (Aubusson 15’, Mitchell 60’, Tupou 71’, Ferguson 78’ tries; Gordon 4/4 goals; Pearce field goal)
Melbourne – 24 (Addo-Carr 24’, 41’, Croft 27’, Vunivalu 51’, Hughes 68’ tries; Munster 2/5 goals)
S21E16 – Melbourne Storm @ Sydney Roosters
A year later, the two teams would again venture to Adelaide, this time on a Friday night, with something very different.
Reigning premiers Melbourne would face off against Cooper Cronk for the first time in Roosters colours. The first half saw the teams score just a penalty goal each, with Melbourne having the better of possession and territory.
A sin bin to Victor Radley for a high shot eventually saw Nelson Asofa-Solomona crash over the line for a try just as the power play was ticking down,5 however the Roosters would answer not long after, despite Addo-Carr almost taking the intercept.
The comedy of the night was left to Latrell Mitchell who clanked a penalty goal attempt off the uprights from directly in front. Later, a differential penalty led to a Cameron Munster missed field goal attempt, and then the play of the night happened with Ryan Hoffman charging down a Cronk field goal attempt and backing up that effort to collect the loose ball. Another field goal attempt from Munster was charged down, leaving it to a fired up Cameron Smith to put Melbourne in front with a 36m field goal with a minute left.6 The Roosters would have one more chance though after hurrying down the field to give Cronk a chance to send the match to golden point, but again a charge down from Hoffman was the difference.
Sydney – 8 (Ikuvalu 62’ try; Mitchell 2/4 goals)
Melbourne – 9 (Asofa-Solomona 59’ try; C Smith 2/2 goals; C Smith field goal)
S22E15 – Melbourne Storm @ Sydney Roosters
The third match in the Adelaide trilogy was yet another close game.
Unlike a year before, this time almost all the points would come in the first half. After a Roosters #RyanTandyMemorialSpecial™ to open the scoring, the alarm sounded as Ryan Papenhuyzen sprinted away to score the first try of the game after some great work on the left edge from Munster, Kenny Bromwich and Addo-Carr.
Easts would score a couple of tries to take the lead, but just before the break Croft would score a try when his own grubber kick was spilled by James Tedesco. 12–all at the break, which probably flattered Melbourne a little bit.
Watching the second half just made me miss Suliasi Vunivalu even more.7 Vunivalu came close a few times, but couldn't score. Melbourne scored a penalty to take the lead 14–12 with 15 minutes remaining, which would prove to be the final score.
The Nine commentators called the match enthralling, but with 16,297 through the gates and a global pandemic on the horizon, it currently is the last NRL game to be played in Adelaide.
Sydney – 12 (Tupou 25’, Manu 33 tries; Mitchell 2/3 goals)
Melbourne – 14 (Papenhuyzen 16’, Croft 37’ tries; C Smith 3/3 goals)
Stat pack
Melbourne have previously played three times previously on 6 April for two wins and a loss, beating Parramatta away in 2002, losing to the Titans in 2014, and beating the Warriors at home in 2015.
The Roosters have a 40% win percentage at AAMI Park, equal second for visiting teams, for an overall record of eight wins from 19 games in Victoria.
The two teams have traded win streaks in matches between the teams over the years with Easts’ four game winning streak from June 2000 through May 2002 their longest. Melbourne’s longest win streak was five matches between 2020 and June 2022, ended with the Roosters win at AAMI Park in the last matchup between the teams last August.
Trent Robinson has a 38.1% win percentage against Craig Bellamy, his lowest win percentage against NRL coaches with a minimum two games played.
Melbourne’s win percentage drops over 11% in matches where Ashley Klein is the referee, while the Roosters increases by about 2%. Melbourne had lost four straight games where #Kleined was the referee, the streak only broken by beating Parramatta in round 1 this season.
Sydney has on average double the amount of rainfall than Melbourne does per year.
Team line-up
Nick Meaney
Will Warbick
Remis Smith
Justin Olam
Xavier Coates
Cameron Munster
Jahrome Hughes
Tui Kamikamica
Harry Grant
Christian Welch ©
Trent Loiero
Elisa Katoa
Josh King
Bronson Garlick
Alec MacDonald
Tom Eisenhuth
Tariq Sims
Jordan GrantGrant Anderson
Tyran WishartJack HowarthJonah Pezet
Preview
After a couple of wins with Jonah Pezet in the line up, Jahrome Hughes returns from suspension to reunite with Cameron Munster. Nominally this should make Melbourne more potent in attack and Hughes is above average defensively on the right edge.
For Easts, James Tedesco misses through the NRL’s mandatory concussion stand down period, meaning Joseph Manu gets the start at fullback. As someone who tends to avoid Roosters games, but sees enough through osmosis, that’s a handy upgrade with Tedesco naturally regressing the past couple of seasons from his peak performance.
Melbourne should have an advantage in the halves, with Munster and Hughes a much better combination than the sometimes fragile Easts pairing of Luke Keary and Sam Walker.8
But again this week the key matchup will be the battle of the nines, former partners in crime: Harry Grant and Brandon Smith.
Grant has quickly embraced his role as an 80 minute player following the departure of Smith to Easts. While his running game is producing on averaging less metres per game, he has been increasing his kick metres. In defence he is getting through more work at Melbourne than ever before, with his numbers similar to his loan spell at Wests Tigers in 2020.
Smith meanwhile in his first season at Easts after his big money move, is playing similar minutes to his 2022 role at Melbourne, averaging about 50 minutes per game. However, his average number of runs and run metres are about half of what his performance was in 2022. Whether that’s just a case of playing a different role under Trent Robinson, or whether it’s that he isn’t a full time hooker the way rugby league is currently played in the NRL, remains open for interpretation.9
Smith will be looking to get one over Melbourne this week, even if the manner of his departure from the playing group wasn’t acrimonious to them, his relationship with the Melbourne fans won’t be the same. I suspect he’ll be looking to have a lot more involvement this week, which could upset the structure of the Roosters attack.
There’s a couple of other former Melbourne players on the fringes for Easts, with 2020 loanee Paul Momirovski in the reserves, and former Thunderbolt Jake Turpin backing up Smith at hooker from the bench.
With both teams playing before last weekend, there shouldn’t be any excuses regarding the shorter week for #SackThursdayNightFootball, but with the BOM predicting possible showers and a thunderstorm to hit during the match, hopefully Melbourne have enough points and patience to get the job done in what could be another close game between the teams.
Referring to the Roosters as Sydney doesn’t work for my brain, so they’re either the Roosters or Easts.
The game that I wanted to be thinking about is S03E06 when the Roosters came to Olympic Park and got pantsed 42–10 by a Melbourne team coming off the back of the 70–10 thumping of the Dragons the week before. Alas, I can only find this snippet online, which is a core rugby league memory of mine.
Quite a few travelling Storm fans made this trip, but I’m sure the rugby league fans in Adelaide were pleased to have the NRL back in town.
Melbourne had rode their luck the week before winning in #GoldenGallop against the Cowboys thanks to a Brodie Croft field goal.
Making up for his amusing dropped ball from the tap restart when Radley was binned. “One of the best” – Paul Vautin Esq.
The fourth and final of his Storm career.
Like seriously, leaving rugby league to play Yawnion, why bother?
My mind’s eye sees last year’s game at the #ShitCG clearly with Walker and Keary unimpressive. The enduring memory of the second meeting last year was that it was spoiled by the referee and Melbourne’s inability to do anything but fumble the ball.
Small sample size and all that.