The Melbourne Storm ran out 28-6 winners against the Penrith Panthers. In a fixture in which the Panthers have struggled in, they threw everything against Melbourne but were met with a side with great resilience and determination in the Storm.
Both sides worked extremely hard and this game will go down as one of the highlights of this 2017 season, but ultimately the Storm were too good for Penrith tonight.
The first half started well for the Storm, who raced out to a 4-0 lead thanks to some Will Chambers and Suliasi Vunivalu brilliance out on the right-hand side.
Soon, the storm were 10-0 in front after surviving a Panthers onslaught after Cronk passed out wide to Chambers who dummied and scored another exceptional Melbourne try.
However, Penrith responded through some great work by Peter Wallace who passed to Te Maire Martin who passed two defenders with great skill to bring Penrith back in it.
After the break, the Storm immediately took the initiative with Cooper Cronk producing a brilliant play to pass threw the Penrith defense and score under the dot.
Later, Penrith responded with attacking set after set on the Melbourne line, but were denied by some brilliant Melbourne defense.
Then, after surviving the Penrith onslaught, Joshua Addo-Carr runs the length of the field and makes it 24-6 sending the Melbourne fans into delirium after their team’s display.
At the full time whistle Vinuvalu puts the icing on the cake for Melbourne who walks away with the two points and a 22-point win.
Melbourne Storm 28
Penrith Panthers 6
The Barry
Roar Guru
That's pretty much what I've said Albo. What I'm saying that is hard to get a line on is where that attacking style will see them finish. I'm sure they can beat the top sides on their day but at the moment it seems pretty hit and miss.
Albo
Guest
Come on Baz ! Whilst its just round 5, the line on the Panthers is pretty evident. They are a full on attacking outfit with plenty of skills across the park, but at this point they are just not tempering their enthusiasm to attack with more mature decision making. Experience is the main thing missing here, along with concentration in defence for the full 80 minutes. They bombed half a dozen tries with errors over the line or poor option selections ( looking at you Peach !) whilst dominating the Storm for 3/4 of the game. They made the bench mark of defensive teams, the Storm, miss 47 tackles but then they failed to make them pay for it. Then they allowed the Storm to run away with a couple of long distance tries ( and missing 31 tackles themselves) to deliver an unflattering scoreline all round for the Panthers. But we Panthers fans have seen that all before against the Storm. One win in the past 18 says it all. We long for the day that Smith & Cronk retire when hopefully we can bury this damn hoodoo ! But come the end of the season with more experience under their belt, I still have no doubt the Panthers will be well in line to challenge in the final series ( and hopefully someone knocks out the Storm along the way !). They have too many good young players not to achieve something out this year. Apart from the Round 1 debacle against St George when they were obviously still in holiday mode and rightly got spanked for it, they have been well in all other 4 matches and should have beaten the Roosters and gone much closer to the Storm on the weekend. They have plenty of depth ( Cartwright, Fisher-Harris & Mansour still to come back) but still have a couple of weak spots needing to be addressed ( their wingers). I anticipate a good year ahead for the Panthers pending a fair run with injuries & the officialdom.
The Barry
Roar Guru
Hard to get a line on the Panthers. They've beaten up the weaker Tigers and Knights but been pumped by the Dragons and Storm and defeated by the Roosters. Is their style that they can razzle dazzle the sides of the pace but not slog it out with the tougher sides?
Lidcombe Oval
Guest
Penrith were supposed premiership favourites but were well beaten by the Storm who were ordinary at best.