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Winning in Melbourne is one of the toughest asks in rugby league. Winning on a rainy night in Melbourne is even harder, such is the Storm’s strength in controlled, aggressive footy.
Winning in the wet when you complete at 60%, as the Roosters found out, is nigh on impossible. They lost 28-8 tonight and it wasn’t even further than that looks.
The Storm were exceptional and the Roosters were far from that. They made errors on errors, gave away crucial penalties at terrible moments and gifted the Storm all the ball they could have wanted to rack up points.
Xavier Coates got a hat trick, but he was far from the only one to stand out. Christian Welch and Justin Olam were superb in the simple stuff, carrying hard and tackling harder.
Cameron Munster was at his impudent best and Nick Meaney’s evolution into a properly good fullback is near complete.
On the other side, Brandon Smith’s return went nowhere. Victor Radley went on report for a late, needless hit on Munster and while he was off in the bin, the Storm scored twice.
When the charges dropped, the England international narrowly escaped a ban – despite this being his third citation within the period, he can take the $3000 early guilty plea and avoid two matches on the sidelines.
Robinson was clearly displeased by Radley’s shot, though he questioned how it garnered the same punishment as the one received by James Tedesco last week, which left his captain concussed and absent from this fixture.
“We got some things this week from the NRL basically saying you can’t do that,” said the coach.
“If it happened to Kez (Luke Keary), I’d be really frustrated there, it was really unnecessary. It wasn’t the end of the world at the same time.
“It’s on the light side. We had ten minutes last week and ten for this, it’s frustrating that there’s a big difference in the ten minutes.
“I want him (Radley) to fix it, but not dwell on it. He’s made some really good progressions this year, so he’s not going to go back to zero on the stuff that he’s got under control. He made a mistake there but we won’t dwell on it for too long.”
The big pre-match drama surrounding Robinson’s choice between Joey Manu and Joseph Suaalii for the fullback role was irrelevant in the end. Neither had any impact, though it was hard to blame them. Nobody in red, white and blue did.
“We improved last week and went another couple of steps tonight,” said Craig Bellamy. “We controlled the ball really well and that made it a bit easier on our defence.
“Our completions really stood out and the way we closed the game down in that last 20-25 minutes, we showed a lot of patience and that wasn’t a strong point in the first two or three rounds.”
If you were wondering who did best out of the Harry Grant and Brandon Smith deal, it’s the team that kept Harry Grant.
He has been the clear standout for the Storm all year, great even in the games that they lost, and was again tonight. Munster was superb again and does all the flashy stuff, but he does it off the back of the extra yards bought for him by his dummy half.
Grant is almost getting space on credit now: defences have to be so honest to his running game, so aware of his deception that they allow an extra second to watch what Grant is doing before acting. When they give that yard, he takes a mile.
It’s an interesting little piece on how the Storm do their best work. Most teams call plays via their halfback, the archetypal controlling playmaker, with a subsection using a combination of their halves and a ball-playing lock.
Only Melbourne and the Tigers (since Api Koroisau arrived) are using their hooker as the metronome.
It might be simply because Grant is really, really good, but it’s likely also because Munster and Jahrome Hughes are intrinsically run-first players who want to play what is in front of them more than doing the 3D chess of leading the team about the park.
Tonight’s performance might have been his best yet – just don’t look at the stats. There were no try assists, no line breaks, below average running metres and a sole 40/20 to hint at how Grant completely, utterly ran the show.
Sometimes the numbers aren’t everything.
If you watched last week’s victory over Souths, or really any of the Storm’s victories for the past two decades, you will have noticed a theme: Melbourne do not beat themselves.
A side like the Roosters are absolutely good enough to beat Melbourne, but they are not immune from the great truism above. If you give a Craig Bellamy side opportunity, it will not be reciprocated. They are the experts in staying the fight and waiting for the opposition to blink.
The Roosters did everything to make life easy for the Storm. Radley produced one of the dumbest sin bins you’ll see, a needless shot on Munster that was roughly two weeks late, and the Storm capitalised ruthlessly.
Early in the second, the Chooks tried to keep it alive on the last in good ball, conceding 40m in the process, then gave away the simplest of offside penalties. The Storm scored on the next set.
It isn’t about completion rates or error-free footy – though in the wet, that helps – so much as it is about doing the free things well. The Roosters did none of that.
“We had to be disciplined and get to that end and kick well,” said Robinson. “We gave them field position on a wet night.
“They had a really good game plan and executed it well against us.
“I thought our middles and edges were poor in the tackling department. They questions they got asked, they need to be much better on finishing off and they weren’t.”
Nick Meaney was one of the signings of the season in 2022, and that was before Ryan Papenhuyzen got injured.
He’s such a quintessential Melbourne player that it’s amazing that he’s been there for such a short amount of time: he’s utilitarian, unassuming and team-first. He barely makes mistakes. He does his job.
It’s frankly bonkers – not to mention a damning indictment – that two NRL organisations closer to home thought he was surplus to requirements. He’d walk into the Bulldogs and Knights teams now as a fullback.
Meaney began his Storm term as a Swiss army knife: he featured at five eighth, centre, wing and eventually fullback within his first ten games. He’s been mostly a fullback since Papi went down last year, and has gone from strength to strength.
Indeed, in 2023, he’s excelled. Last time around, Meaney was a set-and-forget player, a banker in yardage and defence who could finish if required. You wouldn’t have gone to him as the spark plug.
Now, he’s that too. He was on two try assists and one of his own before half time, a starter and finisher of moves. Given that Nicho Hynes just signed a million dollar deal for life at Cronulla, there’s a pathway there that can be followed.
It’ll be a huge call for Craig Bellamy when Papenhuyzen comes back, because Nick Meaney is absolutely undroppable.
“I haven’t thought too much,” said Bellamy. “I’m not sure when Paps is going to be back.
“I’m pretty sure that we’d find a spot for Nick somewhere, he’s been one of our most consistent players all year and his first half tonight was outstanding.
“It’ll be a nice problem to have but it’s not a problem at the moment. We’ll see what happens and go from there.
“We like to recruit good blokes. We knew Nick was that. He’s been a wonderful player for us.