S28E07 Preview – Red fish on Fridays

Hmm, bottlenose bruises. Blowhole burns. Flipper prints. This looks like the work of rowdy teens.

Apr 17, 2025

Melbourne’s first trip to Lang Park for 2025 comes against the Red Fish, but will it be a Good Friday?

After Melbourne took the Easter long weekend off in 2024 with a bye, the Storm are back in action this year so it’s as good time as any to take a look back at some classic Easter matches.

Melbourne Storm at Easter

Melbourne have played matches on every day of the week around Easter, playing on Maundy Thursday all the way through to the Tuesday after Easter Sunday due to Anzac Day over the years.

Maundy Thursday

Just the one match on Thursday night for the Storm, the 28–8 win over the Roosters at AAMI Park in 2023.

Good Friday

Melbourne Storm have played seven matches on Good Friday, going all the way back to the first season when the club lost for the first time against the Auckland Warriors across the ditch. In a then rarity for sport in Victoria, Melbourne took on the Northern Eagles in 2001 at the Docklands, thrashing the visitors 52–18 under the roof. It wouldn’t be until an afternoon game in 2010 that the Storm next played on Good Friday, the 2009 premiers putting the pretender Dragons to the sword 17–4 again under the roof at Docklands.

Since then Melbourne’s defeated the Broncos at Suncorp Stadium in 2013 and at AAMI Park in 2021, but went down to the Sharks at The Swamp in 20181 and the Roosters at AAMI Park in 2019.2

I was at that Broncos game in 2013 and remember that Brisbane was effectively closed on Good Friday. Somehow 40,000+ people showed up at Lang Park because it was literally the only place operating any business that day. The match was the club’s 400th NRL match and the full replay is available as are the highlights.

Holy Saturday

Six Saturday Storm matches at Easter have resulted in wins against the Cowboys (2002 at Olympic Park), Panthers (2006 at Hindmarsh Stadium), Knights (2007 at Newcastle), Panthers (2009 at Olympic Park), Sea Eagles (2017 at Manly) and Sharks (2022 at AAMI Park).

: NRL Rugby League Round 6, Penrith Panthers (aqua and brown) v Melbourne Storm at Adelaide's Hindmarsh Stadium, Saturday April 15th, 2006. Digital image by Colin Whelan © Action Photographics — Cooper Cronk in action against the Panthers in Adelaide back in 2006.

Easter Sunday

The Storm have risen to play seven times on Easter Sunday. The Sharks got the better of Melbourne at Olympic Park back in 1999, with the Storm unable to get the chocolates on three straight occasions between 2003 and 2005. Those three matches were away trips to Manly (2003 and 2005) with a trip to Penrith in 2004.

Brett White and Ben Ross were sent off on Easter Sunday in 2008, the Sharks ending Melbourne’s 15-match winning streak at Olympic Park. Melbourne’s first win on Easter Sunday came in 2012 in Townsville, with Matt Duffie, Kevin Proctor and Will Chambers all scoring doubles in a 42–18 win.

Melbourne haven’t played on Easter Sunday since Canberra won on their annual trip to AAMI Park in 2014.

Easter Monday

Three Storm matches have been played on Easter Monday, first up was the 2011 Anzac Day match against the Warriors, won 18–14 by the visitors. Melbourne won a 2015 Monday evening match against the Wahs, but lost the following season at Cronulla going down 14–6 in an error-ridden clash.3

Tuesday

Melbourne’s first ever Tuesday match came on Anzac Day back in 2000. The extra long weekend that year saw Tasesa Lavea, Brett Kimmorley, Robbie Kearns, Matt Rua, Stephen Kearney and Scott Hill all back up after the Anzac Test played on Good Friday. Only Rodney Howe missed Melbourne’s first visit back to Stadium Australia after the 1999 Grand Final, with the Storm thrashing the Bulldogs 44–22.

Stat attack

Melbourne have played twice before on 18 April, beating the Roosters 17–16 at AAMI Park in 2015, and last season’s win against the Chooks at the SFS.
The Storm have won 31 of 40 trips to Suncorp Stadium a marginally better win percentage than the club achieved at Olympic Park in 136 matches.
The Dolphins have scored 46 points in their three matches against Melbourne — 15.33 points per game, which is well down on their overall 22.57 points per game.
In their first 54 NRL matches the Dolphins have won 22 and lost 32. Melbourne’s 55th NRL match was the 1999 NRL Grand Final with the Storm losing just 17 matches.
Melbourne have won seven of the eight matches when Todd Smith is the referee. Neither team have Smith as the referee so far in 2025.

Team line-up

Ryan Papenhuyzen
Sualauvi Fa’alogo
Jack Howarth
Grant Anderson
Xavier Coates
Cameron Munster
Jahrome Hughes
Stefano Utoikamanu
~~Harry Grant ©~~
Josh King
Shawn Blore
Eliesa Katoa
Trent Loeiro
Tyran Wishart
Alec MacDonald
Tui Kamikamica
Bronson Garlick
Joe Chan
Kane Bradley
~~Keagan Russell-Smith~~
~~Stanley Huen~~
Lazarus Vaalepu

Referee: Todd Smith (Bunker: Wyatt Raymond)

Preview

Redcliffe Dolphins vs Melbourne Storm
— Suncorp Stadium, 8:00pm Friday 18 April 2025

Suncorp Sua is back for Melbourne with the bad news that Moses Leo has a broken shoulder. I didn’t like the phrasing of “extensive damage” used in the injury report that indicated he’ll be out for close to three months. The injury report also confirmed that Jahrome Hughes is okay to play this week, I wonder if he might get a week off though in the next month. Both Will Warbrick and Nelson Asofa-Solomona won’t be in action again this week, which is again concerning. NAS will now need match time before he can be recalled meaning we likely won’t see him until Magic Round at the earliest.

Other than the forced change with Leo out, it’s a fairly stable Storm line-up. Grant Anderson and Sua Fa’alogo might switch it up on their edge, especially in attack, but everyone else will be playing their known roles which is working so far in 2025.

Jack H has been putting up some good numbers in 2025.

For the Red Fish, they’re unchanged following back-to-back wins against the Titans and Panthers. In both games they were able to hit 30 points, scoring five tries against the Panthers in their first ever win against the premiers.

They’ll be chasing another first win against Melbourne, having lost all three previous encounters with the Storm. I do like the look of their back five at the moment, so it will be interesting to see how Anderson and Fa’alogo do on their edge and whether the middle defenders can halt the pressure that could build up. With Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow flying at the moment, the Dolphins have plenty of strike power to score points.

There’s still a strong Storm flavour to the Red Fish in their third season. Felise Kaufusi now starts in the front row for them, with Mark Nicolls on the bench. Kenny Bromwich could play having been named in their reserves after missing the last two matches.

Will freely admit that I was impressed by the Dolphins win over the Panthers. The reigning champs might be off their game at the moment, but beating them (especially for the first time) is a big deal. I can see the Red Fish wanting to add Melbourne’s scalp to their list in the only meeting between the teams this season. As such this game is a level above trap game for mine.

Melbourne will need to emulate the start that they have put out in the past fortnight. Putting the result beyond doubt by half time might be asking for a little bit much, especially on a short week, but the Dolphins have enough potential points that a shootout might be on offer. I’ve been loving the work of the middle forwards recently, and I think that’s an area that the Storm can work over the Dolphins. Would love to see Harry Grant (or not it seems)4 finding space on the back of big runs and fast play the balls. With the forecast for Brisbane on Friday being kind, it might be a case that the Storm are able to flick the switch and play fast, but also engage in a little bit of a grind to stop this one from being a shootout.

In the review of the Warriors match I made mention that Melbourne have been scoring a number of tries from inside their own half to begin 2025. That number is eight. For an in-depth look at the numbers, head over to the Rugby League Eye Test who broke it all down on Monday.

Liam over at Maroon Observer had much to say on stuff that I really like to read, so you should too. Which I would also like to say about NRL.com and the club websites this year, but alas written match reports seem to be the lowest priority these days. A pity, but I guess that’s what happens when you make all the written “content creators” redundant and fail to fund anything that adds value and context to video.5 Perhaps they should at least pay for the AAP Sports copy to appear on NRL.com.

What else is going on?

It’s a bye week for the Queensland Cup, although some teams will be playing their round 1 matches that were postponed due to cyclone. It does mean that there will be limited opportunities for those outside the 17-man squad to push their claims for a spot. The Bears are also on a bye week in the NSW Cup.

In the SG Ball Cup semi finals, the Storm travel north on Saturday to play the Parramatta Eels (kick off 2pm) at the Penrith Brothers park football ground. The Eels went down 32–12 to the Roosters last week, after going through the regular season undefeated, so they will be looking to avoid a straight sets exit. The two teams didn’t face off this season having last played each other in round 7 2024. Good luck to Matt Duffie’s squad.

The undefeated Jersey Flegg squad take on the Fiji Silktails at Seabrook Reserve on Saturday afternoon (kickoff 2pm). The Silktails have lost their last two matches and sit in 10th on the ladder.

The Super Netball have a split round this weekend, so the Lightning’s next match isn’t until the Queensland Cup on 26 April.

One final note for this week, a big welcome to the bunch of new subscribers who have signed up in recent weeks. Thank you for dropping by and reading these biweekly missives. The usual schedule is a preview post every Thursday and a review post after each Storm match. Feel free to say hello in the comments.