“I saw a UFO but nobody believes me,” belted out Sneaky Sound System singer Connie Mitchell at half-time at a buzzing AAMI Park on Friday night. She might have been referring to the NRL in 2024.
A season launch in the Nevada desert. Four upsets in the first four matches, and of those not a minute held in Sydney or Brisbane. And then came, within 45 minutes on this barmy night in Melbourne, even greater disbelief. The Penrith Panthers, legendary three-peaters and perhaps the greatest side in history, were kept scoreless in the opening match of their premiership defence.
The Melbourne Storm held on for an improbable 8-0 victory. It was a strange match befitting of the season so far. One underlined by an uncharacteristically disjointed Panthers attack, a multitude of errors from both sides – 25 in all – and some desperate Melbourne defence. At one point, after the Storm repelled yet another grubber with eight minutes to go, six purple jerseys were bent over, their contents gasping for air.
But there are still things in the modern NRL you can trust. Like Craig Bellamy, the Storm’s master coach, maintaining one of most improbable records in the competition. On Friday his tenure at the Storm passed Wayne Bennett’s stint at the Broncos as the longest ever in the NRL. 22 seasons Bellamy has marched his Storm side into the first round of the NRL. And all 22 times they have walked away the winner.
Such a period of success can be easy to take for granted. But not for Storm fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen. The 25-year-old lost most of the past two years with a shattered knee and fractured ankle. Watching him tear across the turf on his return, seemingly unhindered from his severe recent ailments, his enthusiasm was obvious. A brave bomb defusal and a cut from contact made fans wince within the first five minutes. The blood flowed willingly from his face despite the best efforts of modern medicine, or at least what appeared to be gaffer tape. But on he motored, the embodiment of the Storm’s commitment and craft.
The No 1 has clearly done his homework in the off-season. The NRL tweaked the drop-out rule to remove the penalty for kicks that fly out on the full or drop short before the 10 metres, slightly shifting the balance of risk-reward towards the kicking team. Teams have already taken to the short drop-off in recent years – it’s up 44% since 2021 – having realised the opposition starting their repeat set some 20 metres further back is not a significant advantage. But this takes things to another level.
On Friday, as the tackles mounted and the Storm’s defence became stretched in the final 15 minutes, their mulleted fullback hit three short dropouts. His side secured possession off two, each of them a godsend to his cramping teammates.
Yet it was the period some 15 minutes beforehand that decided the contest. For a moment, it looked like it might have been the premiers’ night. Panthers hooker Soni Luke helped keep a play alive in the middle of the field, and the ball found its way wide left through Jarome Luai, diving in and away. One pass more and all of a sudden Taylan May was streaking down the sideline, a kick inside finding Luke again for the grounding.
Rewinding back however, the video referee found a slight obstruction in front of Luai that chalked off the four pointer, and the lead. A clearly frustrated Panthers coach Ivan Cleary said after the match he had to be “careful”, but “if there’s going to be an obstruction rule, someone has to be obstructed”.
If that video intervention was a momentum shift, within two minutes it was a fully-fledged swing. Up the other end of the field, a kicking Jonah Pezet – in at five-eighth for the injured Cam Munster – found frequent flyer Xavier Coates, who shovelled it back to Reimis Smith for the match’s only try, straight from the Bellamy playbook. A sideline conversion from Nick Meaney pushed the lead to eight, and then the Storm’s defence took over.
And so Penrith find themselves in uncomfortable, but not unfamiliar territory. Last season they lost in the first round to Brisbane, after losing the World Club Challenge to St Helens. In the UK they were far from their best in losing to Wigan, and that form lingered on Friday.
The once fluid, imperious side looked out of sync, and out of ideas. Its most dependable performers – including captain Isaah Yeo, prop Moses Leota and Nathan Cleary – produced handling errors in a dire first half. Into the second and they still failed to fire. Coach Cleary said afterwards his team were “all over the shop”, and “we’ve just got to play better”.
In all, it’s a sentiment better expressed by Mitchell, who opened Sneaky Sound System’s half-time show amidst the fireworks with their 2006 classic, Pictures. “Maybe I, oh… get me on fire … but keep me on, don’t switch me off.”
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