Season 27 – Review
2024 was the 27th season of Melbourne Storm rugby league
Editor’s note: This post should have been published back in October 2024, but wasn’t.
C’est la vie.
It mightn’t have ended with a seventh NRL premiership, but there were some good times to be had watching the Melbourne Storm in 2024.
Pre-season
Going all the way back to February, Melbourne started the 2024 campaign with a pre-season challenge match against the Bulldogs at Belmore. Melbourne led 12–10 at half time on the back of tries to Ryan Papenhuyzen and Dean Ieremia, but a pretty dire second half saw the home team run out 24–12 winners. The following week the club headed to Fiji for some r’n’r their second trial match against the Knights. There were some pretty tries from the Storm in a 28–10 victory. The negative from the Fiji trip was an injury to Cameron Munster which wasn’t going to be an issue at all.
March
Long live the Round 1 streak. Melbourne held the reigning premiers scoreless at AAMI Park, despite missing Munster and Nelson Asofa-Solomona through injury.
A week later and it was the great escape thanks to the last-second miracle try from Xavier Coates. Melbourne’s 15th consecutive win against the Warriors was only soured by the nonsensical suspension of Jahrome Hughes for his contact with referee Chris Butler.
There were few highlights in round three when Melbourne fell to their first defeat of the season against the Knights in Newcastle. It was a mediocre Melbourne performance, with the Novocastrians exposing a few flaws in the 2025 iteration of the Melbourne Storm.
April
After a bye in round four, Melbourne returned to AAMI Park to feature in a ridiculous game of rugby league against the Broncos, despite the ineptitude of Ashley Klein.
Josh Addo-Carr scored a hat trick for the visitors, but it was Melbourne with another big finish to take the win against the Bulldogs. Melbourne trailed after 70 minutes yet again, but Jahrome Hughes and Cameron Munster who sent Shawn Blore over the line for the match winning try, his first in Storm colours.
Melbourne’s first visit to the new SFS was another installment of Melbourne leaving it late to score through Coates to take the lead in what was a stress-inducing match.
The Rabbitohs came to Melbourne for Anzac Day in 2024, replacing the Warriors. Souths, dressed as sailors, returned north without the two competition points yet again. A Coates hat trick and a Papenhuyzen double some of the ten tries scored by the Storm in a 54–20 win.
May
There were set play tries from scrums, stupid rugby league, referee idiocy and Paps getting hurt in Munster’s 200th NRL match. Contractually obliged to play the second half, Melbourne held out the Titans… just.
A frustrating night at AAMI Park with the Sharks taking the points on a night when Harry Grant was sent to the sin bin for reasons, in a match between the teams sitting first and second on the ladder didn’t really feel like it.
Magic Round in Brisbane saw the Storm host the Eels. Munster’s injury finally snapped and saw him doing his best Magikarp impression, meanwhile Harry Grant decided that Melbourne needed to make a statement with some comedy football in a points explosion.
May ended with another frustrating match, a loss to Manly at #FortressShithole. Coming off a short preparation, the Storm looked pretty poor at times, struggling to get anywhere in attack with errors and poor discipline the key takeaways.
June
After a bye, the Storm took to AAMI Park against the Knights with both teams deciding that defence was optional. The theme for the week was “less than ideal” with Bellyache unhappy about conceding 28 points, despite scoring 36.
Going across the ditch for the club’s 700th match, it was a roller coaster of a Saturday night in the Auckland rain. Sua Fa’alogo scored a double, but it was the Jahrome Hughes show as the halfback dominated with the Storm doing enough in a 38–24 win.
Paps was back, Jack Howarth took his chance, and in a loose match the Storm held on to take a 30–24 win against the Red Fish.
July
The rain came down at AAMI Park and Melbourne did enough to get over the Raiders 16–6. It was nice of the Storm to overcome an obvious trap game missing Paps and Grant.
Melbourne scored seven tries at the Lilyfield Rectangle. Wests Tigers scored five. Melbourne fans got a look at Stefano Utoikamanu, while MOB Justin Olam played against the Storm for the first time.
A dominate performance against the Roosters made for a good night at AAMI Park following the third bye of the season. Melbourne grinding up the Chooks for a statement 24–8 win.
Against the overmatched Eels, Melbourne played ugly, but still came away with the win at CommBank Stadium. Munster returned among the other nonsense of this match.
August
Meek and messy. A week after winning ugly, Melbourne were poor against the Dragons, losing to the joint venture in Melbourne for the first time since the last century. Very disappointing.
Still out of sorts, Melbourne got back on the winners list, but only because Souths were very bad in 2024.
Melbourne silenced the Penrith crowd to do the double against the reigning premiers on a Thursday night. It was a fast match, but the sin bin of NAS was a portent of bad things to come.
The Red Fish finally came to Melbourne for the first time. The Storm ran amok and secured the J.J. Giltinan Shield as minor premiers, beating the Wayne Bennett coached Dolphins 48–6.
September
With the minor premiership secured, the Storm trotted out the Renegades in Townsville, having some fun and pushing the Cowboys hard in a defeat that didn’t matter all that much.
The final regular season match of the Storm’s season was little more than an opposed training session. Jahrome Hughes capped off his superb season with a hat trick, Will Warbrick joined in the fun with his own treble as Melbourne put 50 past the Broncos again.
Melbourne’s 24th finals series kicked off against the Sharks with a second half to remember.
Game 712 – S27E28 Review
An almost perfect performance from the Storm in the AAMI Park polar vortex.
Melbourne – 37
Cronulla – 10
After a week off, Melbourne were far too good for the Roosters in the preliminary final. But it came at a cost with Nelson Asofa-Solomona sent to the sin bin and later suspended for the Grand Final.
Game 713 – S27E30 Review
Melbourne led brilliantly by Jahrome Hughes, progress through to an 11th NRL Grand Final after a messy, dramatic and tense night at AAMI Park.
Melbourne – 48
Sydney – 18
October
The 2024 Grand Final saw Melbourne play the reigning three-time premiers Penrith. Unfortunately the Panthers reigned supreme yet again, with Melbourne unable to end their era of domination.
Narrative
So what’s the TL;DR for Melbourne Storm in 2024? Going one better than 2023, Melbourne returned to the top of the ladder at the end of the season, but struggled again versus the Penrith dynasty. The quest for premiership seven will be bolstered by the acquisition of Stefano Utoikamanu in 2025, but still there’s a number of things that need to go right because nothing is ever certain in sports.
Storm Machine Player of the Year
Jahrome Hughes was crowned the Storm Machine Player of the Year, taking out the honour by 13 points from 2023 winner Harry Grant, with Eli Katoa finishing in third position.
Official awards
After claiming the Dally M Medal, Jahrome Hughes took out his second Cameron Smith Player of the Year Award at the Melbourne Storm Awards night:
Cameron Smith Medal (Player of the Year Award): Jahrome Hughes
Members’ Player of the Year: Jahrome Hughes
Billy Slater Rookie of the Year: Jack Howarth
Most Improved Player: Trent Loiero
Best Forward of the Year: Harry Grant
Best Back of the Year: Will Warbrick
Try of the Year: Xavier Coates (Round 2)
At the Dally M Awards, Jahrome Hughes (halfback) Harry Grant (hooker), Eli Katoa (second row) and Craig Bellamy (coach) were all honoured in the official Team of the Year.
Debuts
Five new faces for the Storm in 2024:
Round 3: Shawn Blore
Round 20: Lazarus Vaalepu
Round 26: Keagan Russell-Smith, Ativalu Lisati, Tristan Powell
Farewells
Melbourne said farewell to Aaron Pene and Reimis Smith during the season, with both players joining Super League teams before the transfer window closed. Tepai Moeroa was also going to join them in England, but at the time of writing he has yet to officially link up with a new club. Also leaving Melbourne was AJ Gudgeon and Tristan Powell, while Young Tonumaipea, Chris Lewis and Christian Welch all hung up the boots ahead of the 2025 season. Tonumaipea will be coaching juniors in Melbourne, Lewis has linked up with the Raiders as an assistant coach, while Welch was medically retired in February 2025.1
Tries of the year
No contest for try of the year this season with Xavier Coates taking out the competition’s best try in round 2. Nothing really came close to beating that effort, but the NRL did put together this compilation:
The minutiae
Melbourne played matches on four days of the week in 2024:
Thursday: 7 matches, 6 wins, average 34 points per game;
Friday: 6 matches, 5 wins, average 25.67 points per game;
Saturday: 10 matches, 8 wins, average 28.9 points per game;
Sunday: 4 matches, 2 wins, average 25.5 points per game;
Melbourne ended up winning:
11 of 13 games in Victoria;
4 of 5 games in Queensland;
5 of 8 games in New South Wales; and
1 of 1 game in New Zealand.
Jerseys
Melbourne wore four different jerseys during the 2024 season:
Home (13 matches, 10 wins)
Clash (11 matches, 9 wins)
ANZAC Day (1 match, 1 win)
Indigenous (2 matches, 1 win)
Will hopefully have a feature on Welch at some point in 2025.