S27E24 Preview – Crunch time

Facing down the premiers

Aug 14, 2024

Thursday night football again… sigh.

Your correspondent made the masochistic decision to book a trip to this match a few weeks ago, so it got me thinking about the last time I travelled to Penrith to watch the Storm take on the home team, especially as this is likely to be Melbourne’s last visit to this version of ~~BlueBet~~ Penrith Stadium before they do whatever half-arsed renovation the NSW Government is paying for.1

S18E13 – Penrith Panthers vs Melbourne Storm

It was back in 2015 that I last ventured to Penrith. In what was a very different era for both teams.

In Ivan Cleary’s first spell at the club, Penrith were coming down from their first finals appearance since 2010, finishing in fourth in 2014. They had upset the Roosters 19–18 in a qualifying final, but lost to the Bulldogs in the preliminary final.

Melbourne had been eliminated by the Bulldogs at AAMI Park in week one of the finals, after finishing the season in sixth. After the 2014 season, the Storm offloaded Ben Roberts, upgrading to Blake Green at five-eighth. Melbourne’s biggest signing though was Dale Finucane who joined from the beaten grand finalists, with the club aiming to rebound from what was a lacklustre 2014 campaign.

Teams from *Big League* — Melbourne had a stack of changes

Origin I was played the previous Wednesday before this match, which Billy Slater did play despite his shoulder injury. He would play in Origin II but not again for Melbourne until 2016. Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith had backed up the Monday night against the Roosters, when the Storm were consigned to a 24–2 loss at the old SFS. Cameron Munster would come in for Slater in the number 21 jersey, while Tohu Harris would start in the centres for Kurt Mann. Christian Welch would also play his second NRL match in place of Dayne Weston, while Richie Kennar made his NRL debut for the Storm in on the wing for Marika Koroibete.

Kennar (then just 20-years-old) was just the third Victorian to play with the club, with the Northern Thunder junior graduating through the Storm junior representative teams.2

Former Storm player Sika Manu was in the backrow for the Panthers who had noted speed bump Jamie Soward as an out with Tyrone Peachey moved to five-eighth.

Despite extensive searches, the highlights and replay videos of this match have been wiped from the NRL and club websites, and anywhere else that I could look.3

Remembering this game though, Melbourne skipped out to an early lead through a Blake Green try inside the first ten minutes, adding another late in the first half. Between the two Green tries, Munster scored his second try in Storm colours in just his sixth NRL appearance.

Green’s first try was somewhat fortuitous, picking up the ball from a Cronk kick that ricocheted from the melon of Manu.4

Leading 18–0 at half time, midway through the second half Melbourne were rocked by an knee injury to Cooper Cronk which ruled him out for a month. The halfback suffered a low-grade meniscus tear and wouldn’t return until round 18.

Munster at fullback was a standout for the Storm, as was Green. In the end Melbourne defended their half time lead, only adding a second half penalty goal in the 48th minute, grinding out the home team in a pretty dour struggle in cold conditions.

I can only think that these quotes from Craig Bellamy didn’t help the cause of the highlights of this one living long in the memory:

Again we struggled to score points, especially in that second half and obviously Penrith struggled the whole game really.
I don't think the second half was a great spectacle but having said that I was really rapt with the way the players responded after Monday night defensively. The effort that we put in defensively was tremendous.

Blake Green of the Storm, (right), celebrates with team mates after scoring a try

From the NRL.com reports:

Cameron Munster came up with a bell-ringer of a hit on Panthers winger David Simmons to shut down an attacking raid from Penrith. Later, having been bumped off by a rampaging Waqa Blake who seemed destined to score he recovered to help Cooper Cronk pull off a try-saver. In between, he produced a huge fend on Panthers skipper Peter Wallace to score a fine solo try.
"He's still sort of finding his way around with the footy to be quite honest, he's not getting on the ball as much as we'd like but that's expected because he hasn't played with these guys, this is only his fifth or sixth game," Storm coach Craig Bellamy said after the game.
"I think Munster's best trait is when he made that tackle down there against David Simmons, he whacked him. He's not a big guy but he's brave and he's tough. He's still a long way to go for him to learn about the game but those couple of traits are going to make him a good player."

Penrith – 0

Melbourne – 20 (Green 6', 37', Munster 16' tries; Smith 4/4 goals)

Stats from *Big League* — Tim Glasby was given four errors by the Fox Sports Lab!

Stat attack

Melbourne have played six matches on 15 August, but none since a lost in 2016 at Canberra. Of those matches, Melbourne won four (including last week’s recall match) and lost two. Melbourne’s most (in)famous match on 15 August was the 1998 match at Belmore ~~Sports Ground~~ Swimming Pool, which was won by the Bulldogs 8–4.
Despite winning six of the past nine matches between these teams since the 2020 NRL Grand Final, Penrith’s worst winning percentage against active opponents is against Melbourne. The Panthers have won 15 of 45 matches (33.33%).
Melbourne have won nine of the 16 matches played at Penrith Stadium, having kept the home team scoreless on two occasions (2015 and 2022).
After keeping the Panthers scoreless in round 1 this year, Penrith joined the Broncos as the two teams that Melbourne have kept to nil on three occasions.
Josh King will make his 150th NRL appearance this week, having started his NRL career at Newcastle in 2016. He made 72 appearances for the Knights before joining the Storm in 2022. He scored two tries with the Knights and has scored six with Melbourne, including two this season.
Ashley Klein has controlled three previous matches between these teams as the sole referee — Penrith won two of these matches.

Team line-up

Ryan Papenhuyzen
Will Warbrick
Jack Howarth
Nick Meaney
Grant Anderson
Cameron Munster
Jahrome Hughes
Nelson Asofa-Solomona
Harry Grant ©
Josh King
Shawn Blore
Eliesa Katoa
Trent Loiero
Tyran Wishart
Lazarus Vaalepu
Tui Kamikamica
Alec MacDonald
~~Kane Bradley~~
Sualauvi Fa’alogo
~~Tepai Moeroa~~
~~Dean Ieremia~~
Chris Lewis

Referee: Ashley Klein (Bunker: Gerard Sutton)

Preview

Penrith Panthers vs Melbourne Storm
— BlueBet Stadium, 7:50pm Thursday 15 August 2024

Was interested to read these quotes from Frank Ponissi:

Obviously our position on the ladder, we’re really pleased with. The way we’ve played and won certain games, we’ve hung into every single game, even the games we’ve lost, I think from that point of view we’d rate highly. But we probably haven’t been consistently at our best, so that would probably keep the score down to a 7.5 [out of 10]
The pleasing part about it is when we play the top teams, they’ve been our best performances. With Thursday night coming along we hope the boys will play at that level again.

It’s hard to disagree with Frank here. Melbourne might have won enough games to justify their place on the ladder, but as we’ve explored here previously, the Storm of 2024 are definitely not the team to beat.

As for the teams, Eli Katoa is back from a week off to cause another shuffle of the forward pack. Nelson Asofa-Solomona is back to start in the middle, while Tui Kamikamica moves back to the bench. Other than that it’s pretty much the same old same for Melbourne with the line-up mostly settled. Still unavailable are Xavier Coates and Joe Chan.

At Penrith, Liam Martin is out suspended and Scott Sorensen will miss with a hamstring injury. Dylan Edwards and James Fisher-Harris have been named as their reserves and are in line to return from injury. Who makes way ahead of kick off from the home team will be interesting to see.

The Panthers were last start winners against the Eels in another epic choke by Parramatta, who were up by 14 points with seven minutes left of their match last Friday night.5 Prior to that, the Panthers haven’t lost since late June when the Cowboys rolled into Penrith to defeat an Origin-affected home team 16–6. Those five wins in a row have all been against teams battling to make the finals (except Parramatta), so Melbourne will be the toughest test of the Panthers in a little bit.

The issue is that Penrith keep passing those tests, usually with annoying luck and efficiency. They again have the best defence in the competition (16.2 points against) and an above average attack, even with Nathan Cleary missing a number of matches this season.

Thinking back to round 1 when Melbourne upset the defending premiers at AAMI Park to open the season, it comes back to the cliche that defence wins matches like this. Melbourne’s defence has improved as the season has progressed,6 but it’s going to take a massive fully 17-man effort to win this one. Katoa’s return is positive and coming off a full week will help after the short week last week.

Mostly what I want to see this week is that attitude that has had Melbourne match up well against the good teams in 2024. If there isn’t two competition points as the final result, the ability to bounce back and keep moving forward towards the ultimate goal will need to be seen. This likely won’t be the last time Melbourne face Penrith this season, so the lessons learnt here will be important come September.

Editor’s note: The announcement of the four former Storm players inducted into the NRL Hall Of Fame has somewhat preempted next week’s post (when the announcement was due).

Finally, an annual reminder from The Rugby League Eye Test: real footballers wear socks up.7

What else is going on?

The Storm Jersey Flegg Cup squad are the curtain raiser on Thursday night (kickoff 5:20pm) at Penrith. The fourth-placed Panthers will likely be too tough for a Storm team that has now lost their past three matches to sit in 11th position, only a point clear of the two teams above the lowly Silktails.

The Bears are again at home this week taking on the seventh-placed Panthers on Sunday (kickoff 3pm). Following three straight losses, Norths are in need of a win with the pack closing in on them in the race to the finals. Their lead has been cut to just one point.

In Queensland, the Falcons will be looking to bounce back and dent the Souths Logan Magpies finals hopes when they travel down to Davies Park on Sunday (kickoff 2:10pm). This match will be available to watch on 9Now for those without a Qplus subscription. The Tigers will fly off to Port Moresby for their match on Sunday (kickoff 3pm) against the Hunters. A win will still keep their slim finals chances alive with just two games left to play.