The Melbourne Storm have beaten the South Sydney Rabbitohs 26-8 in a game that showed the Rabbitohs have a a way to go if they really want to mix it with the contenders come finals time.
While the Rabbitohs were missing John Sutton and Greg Inglis, two of their better players, there were signs throughout the game that the Bunnies are not quite there yet.
Adam Reynolds has has a fantastic start to his career. You can take nothing away from him in that sense. Right now though he is being asked to lead the Rabbitohs for the first time and you can see that the extra responsibility is forming him to over play a little bit.
The good news is that Reynolds is trying hard and getting himself involved in the game. At this stage of his career you have to expect him to learn from mistakes….its the only way a young halfback gets any better.
His halves partner in this game, highly rated youngster Luke Keary, showed once again that he has a touch of class that could see him playing rep football in the near future. Every time he touched the ball he looked dangerous and made something happen. It will be interesting to see how long the Rabbitohs wait before they move Sutton into the back row to accomodate Keary.
the thing that worried me the most about the Rabbitohs in this game was the way the Storm were able to work their forward pack over early on. Cameron Smith and Billy Slater were masterful out of dummy half and the Storm simply killed the Rabbitohs around the ruck.
Once the Storm got on a roll there wasn’t much the Rabbitohs could do about it. The Rabbitohs big pack has been brilliant this season, but you get the feeling the Storm found a chink in their armor.
The Storm got off to a good start, fall away a little heading into half time, and then kicked away again in the last 20 minutes. It was a very typical Melbourne Storm performance on a day when the club celebrated signing up their 15,000th member.
The Rabbitohs will have taken a lot out of this game and I dare say they know they have a lot to work on now. Yes they were under strength compared to the team they will hopefully be running out come finals time, but other areas of their game also come up short tonight in Melbourne.
As for the Storm, they look fantastic right now. Right where you would want them to be heading towards the finals series. They are not playing their best football, but they are getting close!
Ok, first off lets be honest, take the top 2 players out of any team and they will struggle against the top sides… especially if one is arguably the best player in the game
secondly the decision to not send the 3rd try to the video ref was questionable, try or no try I’m not 100% on but still worth a look. Also I would scrutinize the 2nd on as the ball seem to fall out around the same time J. Bromwich’s hand came flying out of the back of the tackle, which happened to be the one he scored with, again without actual proof he strip it it remains debatable.
Finally, Souths has 3 passengers in the team, 2 show up every week and would make a great addition to a few other teams but do not honestly deserve the spot they are playing in, 1 simply should not be there in Everingham.
At the end of the day they lost, Cronk proves why he is the best half back in the comp by his ability to read defense better then anyone else in the comp. Not blaming any player, not blaming the ref, just questioning decisions.
And so you know this was written by a bunnies fan, But more so a rugby league fanatic.
I’ve always been of the opinion that when you lose by more than a couple of tries you can’t really go back and blame the referee’s unless they were completely terrible.
I tend to think in this game the Storm got the rub of the green, but they would have beaten the Rabbitohs by a big margin anyway.
I am concerned about the Rabbitohs forward pack coming out of this game. They have a lot of very good players in their pack but the Storm showed how to wear them down tonight. I think that will be something they work on over the next few weeks because if they meet the Storm again in the finals I think the Storm will murder them around the ruck again.
I can agree with all but the last bit. In Melbourne I’d think Melbourne would more then likely get up given South’s record, how ever if it’s in Sydney and both have the expected teams I believes there maybe a significant turn around.
Also what killed the forward pack was the pause when Farrell was taken off on a stretcher, (did you notice the urgency of the first aid officer to get to the injured player? really gave me confidence in them.) They were on the front foot and had an amazing line-speed I haven’t seen before this season from South’s before the stoppage. They would have lost the adrenaline they were obviously playing on, as it never good to see a player go down especially one of your own team mates in that fashion.