- MELBOURNE 23 NEWCASTLE 10
MELBOURNE have blown sides away this season with their blistering attack.
On Sunday, it was all about their suffocating defence.
Caned in the penalties and under the pump for much of the contest, the Storm showed their championship qualities to firstly subdue a relentless Newcastle attack, before putting them to the sword late in the game.
Match centre: Game details and stats
And it was their Big Three, Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater, who again proved the difference.
Down 8-4 at halftime after tackling themselves silly in the first 40, Smith put his side in front for the first time in the game with a trademark try after catching the Knights defence napping close to the line.
Storm players celebrate victory.
Then, after Newcastle hit back to level it up at 10-all via the boot of Kurt Gidley, Cronk and Slater combined for the try that proved to be the turning point.
A pin-point Cronk cross kick meant for Slater found its mark as it so often does with the Storm fullback planting the ball down under the posts before Cronk added a field goal for a 17-10 lead with eight minutes left to take the game away from the home side.
Cronk’s involvement in the money plays rubbed salt into the Knights wounds.
It was the Melbourne halfback who conceded the penalty that saw the Knights draw level at 10-all midway through the second half.
He took Darius Boyd out after the Newcastle fullback was attempting to chase down a Jarrod Mullen chip kick following a scrum win.
Knights players, with plenty of justification, were adamant Cronk should have been sent to the sin-bin for deliberate interference.
Their coach Wayne Bennett agreed.
“There is no doubt he should have been sent to the sin-bin,’’ Bennett said.
“It’s not sour grapes. It’s a professional foul. We were in the act of trying to regather the ball to score a try and he was just deliberately taken out. You can’t get much more deliberate than that.’’
Storm celebrate a try to Jordan McLean (left).
Bennett admitted he is baffled by what now constitutes a sin-binning.
“I don’t know what the sin-bin’s for because no one ever goes to it. It’s irrelevant in the game,” he said.
The Knights coach then turned the heat up on the Storm, accusing them of deliberately giving away penalties when under pressure in a bid to slow down the game, a ploy he believes has been creeping into the game among the top sides.
Melbourne lost the penalty count 10-4 but were down 6-0 at one stage and 10-2 deep into the second half.
“It’s become quite obvious. I can see the reason why they do it but it’s not in the spirit of the game as far as I’m concerned,’’ Bennett said.
Joseph Leilua over for the Knights.
“They buy time, re-establish their defensive lines and back themselves to make sure you don't score in that set of six. The only way they will stop it is by sin-binning players otherwise it’s going to continue.”
For his part, Storm coach Craig Bellamy conceded Cronk may have been fortunate not to have suffered a greater punishment but was happier to talk about the resolve in his side’s defence.
“The first half was really tough and we didn’t have much footy and found it hard to get some field position,’’ he said.
“But I thought the boys hung in really good defensively and we just kept chipping away."
It was Melbourne’s seventh straight win over the Knights with the victory seeing them jump Manly into third spot on the ladder.
Joseph Leilua of the Knights is tackled by Storm defence.
The loss continued Newcastle’s barren run against the top four sides.
They are yet to beat any of them this season.
Knights five-eighth Mullen was a central figure as the Knights led 8-4 at halftime.
But the two-point margin was hardly indicative of the home side’s dominance and it came back to bite them in the end.
Despite going into the game without influential forward Jeremy Smith, the Knights looked confident from the outset and for much of the opening 40 minutes, the Storm were on the back foot.
It was only outstanding defence from Melbourne which denied Newcastle on several occasions.
Winger Akuila Uate was narrowly denied a try early in the game and centre Dane Gagai went close after 11 minutes following a Mullen kick into the Storm in-goal.
Melbourne’s moments were few and far between with Mullen coming up with a try-saver on Maurice Blair on one of the few occasions the Storm found themselves within striking distance.
The deadlock was finally broken in the 21st minute when the Knights found Melbourne short on their right edge on the back of two straight penalties.
Backrower Robbie Rochow did his part before centre Joey Leilua crossed out wide for a 4-0 lead.
It was 8-0 eight minutes from halftime when Mullen produced some outstanding vision and execution to gift his winger Uate a try.
Noticing the Storm defence compressed on the left edge, he kicked cross-field for Uate to catch it on the full and evade Billy Slater’s desperate attempt to prevent the try.
But as Melbourne are renowned for doing, they found a way, albeit, controversially, to turn a opportunity into a try.
On the back of their first penalty of the half and after an apparent Cooper Cronk knock-on, interchange forward Jordan McLean forced his way over.
Cameron Smith’s conversion from close range hit the upright leaving the score at 8-4.
MELBOURNE 23 (J McLean B Norrie B Slater C Smith tries C Smith 3 goals C Cronk field goal) bt NEWCASTLE 10 (J Leilua A Uate tries K Gidley goal) at Hunter Stadium. Referee: Jared Maxwell, Brett Suttor. Crowd: 26,822.
No comments:
Post a Comment