Storm hit new low as Souths run riot in Melbourne
Melissa Woods |
Coach Craig Bellamy says he’s never been more embarrassed as Melbourne slumped to a historic low, suffering an ugly 48-6 loss to a hoodoo-busting South Sydney in their Anzac Day clash.
The Rabbitohs celebrated their first win in Melbourne on Saturday, taking 28 years and 21 matches to break the streak — and they did it in style.
The thumping result was the Storm’s sixth-straight loss this season, a sequence they last registered back in 2002 under Mark Murray, before Bellamy took over a year later.
It was their worst result at AAMI Park and their biggest anywhere since 2003.
“Probably the most embarrassed I’ve ever been in my footy life, to play like that tonight,” said Bellamy, who has coached 613 NRL games as well as playing 150 for Canberra.
“The opposition played really well, but to come up with a performance like that and a lack of effort like that on Anzac Day is embarrassing.
“Tonight was just a stand out from our other losses, to be quite honest.”
Even South Sydney skipper Cameron Murray admitted he was surprised by the margin.
“Yeah, probably a little bit, it’s never easy coming down here,” Murray said.
“Not having won down here, it’s pretty special to break a drought like that.”
With just two wins for the season, Melbourne are now in danger of missing the finals for the first time under Bellamy and their task could be even greater with superstar halfback Jahrome Hughes forced off with an arm injury.
Souths were almost unstoppable in the first half, surging to a 24-0 lead with Alex Johnston bagging a double among his side’s five tries.
Named Anzac Medallist, a barnstorming Latrell Mitchell had a hand in both, batting on a ball to his winger for the visitors to open the scoring in the eighth minute.
Melbourne’s first-half statistics were horror viewing for the large crowd, only completing 12 of 19 sets while they made no line-breaks compared to Souths’ eight.
They also made seven errors with mistakes by Sua Faalogo and Nick Meaney both handing over possession for the Rabbitohs to score.
Bellamy gave the team a huge halftime spray before striding out of the changeroom to leave the senior players and assistant coaches to find a way out of the funk.
The Storm looked they’d finally made it onto the scoreboard seven minutes into the second half, but the bunker ruled Trent Loiero had promoted the ball as he attempted to ground it over the line.
Keaon Koloamatangi and Sean Keppie also deserved credit for their desperate defence.
Tallis Duncan rubbed salt into Melbourne wounds, spraying Cameron Munster after palming off both the Storm five-eighth and Jack Howarth as he scored his second of three tries.
Campbell Graham also grabbed a double, the winger diving across for his team’s eighth try in the 66th minute.
Faalogo broke the hosts’ duck three minutes later in surprising fashion when he scooped his own short kick-off to split the defence to score a brilliant individual try.
It was Melbourne’s first line-break of the night, but the visitors still had the final say with Duncan’s third four-pointer.
The only blight on the Rabbitohs’ night was the loss of Brandon Smith, with the burly forward suffering a recurrence of the calf injury that had restricted him to three games this season. The Souths, though, felt the problem wasn’t serious.
AAP