S29E10 Preview – Not so Magic Eight Ball
You eight to see it.
Can Melbourne turn things around enough to snag a win for the first time since March?
When I went looking for something to cheer me up from the past this week, I released that of the previous 39 matches between the Storm and Wests Tigers that there wasn’t many classic battles. Eventually though I remembered this one1 from 2019…
S22E10 – Melbourne Storm vs Wests Tigers
Uggh. Thursday night football. The scourge of the Storm fanbase.
There weren’t many in attendance either for this one, just 11,402 through the gates at AAMI Park.
Melbourne had won handsomely the previous weekend, thrashing the Eels 64–10 at the first Magic Round, with Ryan Papenhuyzen the standout in just his fifth NRL match. This then would be the former Wests Tigers' junior first start in the run-on team for Melbourne, taking the number one jersey from Jahrome Hughes. Also missing this match was Curtis Scott who had suffered another injury setback in the win against the Eels — he wouldn’t return to the NRL until round 23 of the 2019 season. Cameron Munster was playing his 99th NRL match and had taken the early lead in Dally M Medal voting.
The Storm had lost just twice to start 2019 — losing the Grand Final rematch at AAMI Park to the Roosters 21–20 and at Cronulla in round 8. Meanwhile the visitors had won five of their nine matches to sit sixth on the ladder — the Michael Maguire coached team had dispatched the Panthers 30–4 at Magic Round. Victorian junior and former Melbourne Storm winger Mahe Fonua was on the wing for the Tigers, while Benji Marshall and Robbie Farah were only a few weeks away from each playing their 300th matches.2
On a cold and dewy night, ball control early was crucial to both teams. On the back of an early penalty, the Tigers had the best of the field position, testing out Papenhuyzen at the back and Brodie Croft, Seve and Suliasi Vunivalu up against their left edge attack. An errant short drop-out from Cameron Smith gave Wests a 2–0 lead through the boot of Esan Marsters in the eighth minute.3
From there it was a fairly grindy first half. Melbourne were a little undisciplined, while the visitors looked up for the fight. Paps turned up the excitement during the first half — he sprinted and dove over the sideline to retrieve the ball from a Tigers penalty, then set up an attacking raid — Melbourne taking the two points on offer from their first penalty of the night in the 16th minute to level the scores. That though was immediately nullified when Jesse Bromwich dropped the ball on the restart into an offside Smith — Adam Gee blowing the penalty for Marsters to kick the visitors back to a 4–2 lead.
The grind resumed with neither team able to get out of the arm wrestle. Adam Gee kept penalising Melbourne and the Tigers took another two points in the 26th minute. A couple of minutes later though Ryan Papenhuyzen broke the game open. Passed the ball one off the ruck on second tackle, he burst through the Tigers defence 20m out from the Storm line, steaming through Farah and Luke Brooks to sprint to the tryline. An 80+ metre run showing tremendous speed and agility. It was a wow moment that lit up AAMI Park.
With a narrow 8–6 lead, Melbourne had a couple of concerns — Cameron Munster took a knock to his elbow and then the video referee awarded a try that was sent up as no try with a clear obstruction, only to overrule and award it to Josh Aloiai. Okay, sure. Guess NFL-style blocks were legal for one night only.
Down 12–8 at the break, things only got worse for the Storm early in the second half. Munster’s elbow was okay, but Christian Welch looked to have suffered a serious knee injury. The prop forward limped off at half time and did not return for the second period, but fortunately was later cleared from needing a knee reconstruction and only missed a few weeks with a torn meniscus.
An error from Croft on the opening set handed the Tigers the impetus and Luke Brooks took full advantage on a short side raid, the halfback bouncing out of a Vunivalu tackle after stepping inside of Seve, to slam the ball down over the line.
Down by eight, Melbourne needed to be the next to score and through the guile of Cameron Smith and skill of Munster they did. The try was scored by Felise Kaufusi who grabbed a dinky little Munster kick adjacent to the posts to plant the ball down over the line.
A two point margin seemed apt for such a tight, grind of a game. But the visitors took back the advantage almost immediately. A dodgy play the ball from Nelson Asofa-Solomona put Wests on the attack and it only took one set for Marsters to take his personal points tally to 14 points, running a line outside Marshall to bounce over the line… even if the last past from the Tigers legend was never backwards. The visitors targeting Brodie Croft again as the weakest link in the Storm defensive line.
With 20 minutes remaining Wests could have extended their lead to ten points with another easy penalty goal, but this time opted to go for more — it was a decision that they would regret. Papenhuyzen held up Moses Mbye over the line in a ball and all tackle with Brandon Smith. It wasn’t the flashy attacking plays that endeared Paps to the Storm fans — it was the defence and effort plays without the ball that showed that he was a special player who had elevated his game that early into his career.
Jesse Bromwich went close to scoring with 15 minutes to go, but after Melbourne muscled up in defence, finally showing some discipline to avoid the ire of the referees, the pressure started to build on the visitors.
Wests cracked with just on ten minutes to go. It had looked like it wouldn’t be Melbourne’s night, but the Storm found a way to score — Marion Seve bouncing over out on the right edge after a final tackle play saw Croft attempt a grubber for Papenhuyzen to run onto, only for the ball to ricochet back to the home team. The skipper slotting the conversion from wide out to bring the margin back to two points.
That try might have given Melbourne the impetus to snatch the win — except their expansive passing brought another error on the next set — it was the Storm’s eighth for the match. With the Tigers on the attack, Marsters went close to scoring, then Brooks forced a drop-out which was taken quickly by Smith who went long. With the game dependent on their defence, Melbourne stood strong. So did the Tigers though with the Storm throwing plenty at their defence with some quick passing.
Rolling through the centre, the Storm built a strong set and when the skipper set up Kenny Bromwich with a looping pass, a missed tackle from Fonua put the Kiwi into space. An inside ball back to Will Chambers saw the centre step through three defenders to score and snatch the win with less than two minutes on the clock. Chambers getting the ball down with the video referee confirming the on field decision.
Melbourne had pulled off something of a heist through sheer will. The home team might not have been at their best, but little sparks of brilliance and leadership from the skipper saved the Storm from a third straight defeat against the Tigers.
Belsa was proud of the effort, but acknowledged it was a weird game:
It was a slow game of footy. We were probably lucky to get away with it, but we kept ourselves in there. It was encouraging — not too much went our way, but we kept sticking in there.
They were on top for a fair bit of the game, but we found ways to keep hanging in there.
Melbourne – 24 (Papenhuyzen 28', Kaufusi 53', Seve 70', Chambers 78' tries; C Smith 4/5 goals)
Wests Tigers – 22 (Aloiai 34', Brooks 43', Marsters 56' tries; Marsters 5/6 goals)
Dally M votes: Ryan Papenhuyzen (3), Benji Marshall (2), Dale Finucane (1)
S22E10 #NRLStormTigers
Game 564 — 24–22
Coming from behind for a grinding victory. Such a contrast from last week, but a much needed two points.
Stat attack
Melbourne have won all three of their previous matches played on 10 May, beating the Raiders at Olympic Park in 2003 and Manly at AAMI Park in 2014. The Storm also travelled to Parramatta in 2015 scoring a 28–10 win.
Melbourne have played six previous matches on Mother’s Day, going back to the opening of AAMI Park on 10 May 2010 against the Broncos. After losing their first three matches (2010, 2012, 2013), the Storm won in 2015, 2022 and last year also against Wests Tigers.
The Storm have won their past eight matches against Wests Tigers, averaging a tick over 40 points per game in those matches. The last time the Tigers left AAMI Park with the points was from a 10–8 win in Billy Slater’s 300th NRL match back in 2018.
This is the fifth time Melbourne have played against the Wests Tigers in May, with three of those previous matches played in Victoria.
In Sunday afternoon matches kicking off before 2:30pm local time, Melbourne have won 62 of 92 previous matches, and have won their previous 12 matches in the 2pm Sunday afternoon slot. Melbourne have lost just one 2pm Sunday afternoon match at AAMI Park in 18 matches, losing to the Titans in 2014.
Jarome Luai has been on the winning team in eight of the 13 matches he’s played against Melbourne.
Benji Marshall won 10 of the 29 NRL matches he played against Melbourne, scoring a hat trick at the Lilyfield Rectangle in 2010.
This week in Storm history
Birthdays:
3 May: Jesse Bromwich ⚡️119
4 May: Ryan Morgan ⚡️173; Max King ⚡️199
5 May: John Wilshere ⚡️024
6 May: Aseri Laing ⚡️029
7 May: Marty Turner ⚡️054
8 May: Dustin Cooper ⚡️066; Richie Fa’aoso ⚡️142
Blast from the past:
Storm’s Spartans take fight to AFL’s horde (Sydney Morning Herald/Roy Masters)
7 May 2011
WHEN Craig Bellamy began reading Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, he had no idea how closely the story line would relate to the journey that has led his Melbourne Storm team to Brisbane tonight.
Gates of Fire is the 1998 historical fiction novel about the small army of Greek states that took on an invading Persian force of two million at the battle of Thermopylae, in the 5th century BC.
The Storm and Broncos meet at Suncorp Stadium tonight in a match deliberately scheduled to counter the AFL's first all South-Eastern Queensland display of might — the Gabba extravaganza between the Lions and the new Gold Coast team, the Suns.
While the Thermopylae locals might be rugby league lovers, the Persian invaders, enriched by a $1.25 billion TV deal, clearly want to destroy them. Bellamy’s team are the 300 Spartans chosen to lead the Greeks but have an uneasy alliance with the Athenians — the NRL, based in Sydney.
The NRL Athenians have stripped them of their armour, persisted in a merciless audit of their resources and sent them into battle, expecting them to be slaughtered.
After all, with five Storm players backing up from last night’s Australia-New Zealand Test match on the Gold Coast and one travelling from Albury today after the City-Country game, Bellamy is short of fresh troops.4 His opposition decided to bring in some rookie reinforcements, with the Broncos choosing not to select their five warriors from the Test.
The Storm's belief the Athenians/NRL don't love them is not just based on last year’s salary cap punishments and NRL chief executive David Gallop’s long-delayed visit to Melbourne to face their wrath.
When the Storm were thrashed earlier this year in a Monday night match at Townsville, Gallop sent Cowboys chief executive Peter Jourdain a text message that said: “Isn’t Monday night football great!”5
The Storm translated this to be a continuation of what they believe to be the NRL’s vindictiveness.
Gallop ridicules the suggestion, saying, “I did send the text but it had nothing to do with the Storm. It was because the Cowboys hate Monday night football. They prefer Saturday night. It had nothing to do with who they beat.”
But with eight of the NRL’s 16 teams enjoying a bye this weekend, the Spartans wonder why the Athenians have chosen them to lead the battle against an AFL desperate to dominate the media and showcase their new team, including former Bronco Karmichael Hunt.
Thermopylae was the only way into Greece for the Persian army and South-East Queensland, with its many resettled Victorians, is the natural entry point for the AFL.
Yet, the Storm are equal to the challenge. Watch them train, including their youth and under-20 teams, and you think of the Spartans and their disciplined warrior code.
As Bellamy says, “The Spartans had academies [agoge] where they recruited 12-year-old kids and trained them and then progressed up to the next age group.
“Protecting each other was what it was all about. You held your spear in your right hand and your shield in the left hand. You could drop your spear but never your shield, which protected the soldier on your left-hand side, in the same way you were protected by the soldier on your right.
“Some of our kids should read it. The young Spartans were flogged to death if they made a mistake. We make them run a few laps of the oval.”
Asked if some of his senior players had read Pressfield’s book, Bellamy said: “Not many are readers. Like me, they found the first 50 pages hard going. It is old-style writing, and I had to keep going back, remembering who the names of characters and who they were.
“I never did history at school but I learned a lot about how they trained and their mentality. I found things from the book where you could make comparisons with us.
“Leonidas, the Spartan king was a great leader but Dianeke [the bravest Spartan officer] was my favourite. He was unfair at times but was Spartan to the core. There were no grey areas with him. Everything was black and white.”
Asked how he learnt of the book, Bellamy says: “I linked up with the All Blacks for three days before they went on their European tour. I was talking to Wayne Smith, the assistant coach, and he asked me if I was excited about 2011. I said, ‘Not really. I still feel numb [from the salary cap saga] and tired.’“Wayne said, ‘Give yourself a lift and read this book. If you feel sorry for yourself, this is the book to read.’
“Wayne said he read it after he had been sacked. It tells you life is not so bad, after all.”
History tells us the 300 Spartans held off the Persians until almost all were killed.
On the eve of the battle, Dianeke was told the Persian archers were so numerous their arrows would block out the sun. He replied, '“Good. Then we’ll fight in the shade.”
I can imagine Bellamy saying that.6
Do you remember:
A year after the disastrous 1999 NSW Origin camp that saw Robbie Kearns damage his shoulder after falling from a horse to miss months of that season, this week in 2000 Chris Johns told the Storm’s five NSW representatives that he would ban them from their whitewater rafting expedition unless they were adequately insured.
“We don't want our players put at risk because if something happens we'll be asking for compensation,” Johns said.
Team line-up
Sualauvi Fa’alogo
Will Warbrick
Jack Howarth
Nick Meaney
Hugo Peel
Cameron Munster
Jahrome Hughes
Stefano Utoikamanu
Harry Grant ©
Josh King
Shawn Blore
Ativalu Lisati
Trent Loiero
Trent Toelau
Joe Chan
Davvy Moale
Cooper Clarke
Stanley Huen (possible NRL debut)
Manaia Waitere
Jack Hetherington
Lazarus Vaalepu
Moses Leo
Referee: Adam Gee (Bunker: Chris Butler)
Preview
Melbourne Storm vs Wests Tigers
— AAMI Park, 2:00pm Sunday 10 May 2026
This seven match losing streak has got me consulting far and wide. What better than to ask a Magic Eight Ball whether the Storm will win or lose this week?
Team list Tuesday came and went again for the Storm with only incidental changes. The injured Tyran Wishart is likely out for more than a month with a syndesmoses, so Trent Toelau takes his bench utility role, while Jahrome Hughes returns from his one week enforced break. Elsewhere though… not much is doing. Toelau keeps the quota of Victorians in the team at three, with Hugo Peel retaining his spot out of position on the wing. The only real news for the Storm is the potential NRL debut of young Queenslander Stanley Huen. He’s played four matches in the NSW Cup this season either in the second row or off the bench. Nominally he’s a five-eighth, but has been popping up in a few different positions and roles in the junior teams since coming to the club in 2023 from the Souths Logan Magpies.
For the Wests Tigers their backline looks decidedly average. Jahream Bula is out, as is Adam Doueihi. In their place Heath Mason (15 NRL matches) has been named at fullback, and Jock Madden returns to the halves to partner Jarome Luai. The danger out wide will come from Sunia Turuva, the former Panthers premiership winner has scored twice in his seven matches against the Storm, while former Storm feeder player Tristan Hope will be wearing the number nine jersey after making the move from Queensland last year.
Last year Melbourne beat the Tigers 64–0 at AAMI Park on this exact weekend. That won’t happen this year. If the Storm can improve again on their first half efforts in the Brisbane rain last week, extending that to the full 80 minutes, then maybe this slump can come to and end. But that’s the thing. 80 minutes of effort. Until we see that, it’s hard to think that this streak will end soon.7
This though seems like their best chance. Wests Tigers were absolutely horrible last weekend against the Sharks. For a period in the second half they hardly touched the ball and when they did it often resulted in an error. Cronulla meanwhile ran in six tries.
Oh apparently this is a crisis, but rugby league always craves and loves a crisis.
What else is going on?
The NSW Cup squad will be the curtain raiser at AAMI Park on Sunday morning, kicking the dew off the field from 11:30am. They’re up against the Wests Magpies who have two wins from their seven matches this season, having won their last match against the Newtown Jets at Henson Park last Saturday.
On Saturday afternoon (kickoff 1pm) at Gosch’s Paddock the Storm U21s will face the Wests Tigers. The visitors are on a three game winning streak and sit one point off the top of the ladder with five wins and a draw from their seven matches.
The Mavericks and Vixens both had tight wins against opponents from The Bad Place last weekend, while the Lightning had their regular loss against The Green Team. This week the Lightning will be on Saturday afternoon against the Swifts (first pass 5pm), while it will be a double dose of Victorian teams on Sunday afternoon with the Mavericks away to the Giants (first pass 2pm) and the Vixens hosting the Firebirds across the road at John Cain Areana (first pass 4pm).
Which, sadly, still wasn’t a classic even if the final score was close.
Nine had a cast of thousands at AAMI Park on this night too — Mathew Thompson, Andrew Johns, Phil Gould, Jonathan Thurston, Brad Fittler and Billy Slater were all heard on their commentary. Thompson continually plugging the Nine News special about the passing of Bob Hawke was a little bit much though.
#RyanTandyMemorialSpecial™
Billy Slater, Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk, Matt Duffie and Adam Blair all played in the ANZAC Test on the Gold Coast, while Ryan Hinchcliffe and Beau Champion played in the utterly pointless match in Albury. Only Duffie and Champion didn’t back up against the Broncos.
Gallop really was a stain on rugby league.
I love that Roy Masters wrote this story without referencing the movie 300 which came out in 2006. I mean Prestfield’s Gates of Fire was originally released in 1998, the same year that the 300 comic book was released. Wait… is this a non-film version of the twin film phenomenon? 1998 was a banner year for that phenomenon too!
If you need a reminder of how things are different in 2026 — the 2019 match recalled this week saw Melbourne miss 19 tackles to the Tigers 20. Last week the Dolphins missed 21 tackles, Melbourne missed 46.