Storm speedster steers Melbourne to crucial NRL win
Melissa Woods |
Fleet-footed Melbourne fullback Sua Faalogo has helped run the Sydney Roosters ragged to bank an important 18-4 win to take a leap up the competition ladder.
With six players backing up from State of Origin, including James Tedesco and Sam Walker, in their Saturday night match at AAMI Park, the Roosters couldn’t hold back their desperate hosts.
The Sydney outfit’s shoddy performance – including a 61 per cent completion rate, 18 errors and 44 missed tackles – left coach Trent Robinson seething.
“Really poor, real lack of respect for the harder parts of the game, lack of respect for the ball and how you should play the game, and so we get the result we deserve,” he said.
Robinson refused to blame the heavy Origin workload for his team’s showing.
“That’s the last excuse, players have got to back up and play – that’s the way the competition’s formed, so we expect them to come back and play,” he said.
While Faalogo missed scoring one of Melbourne’s three tries, the 23-year-old clocked up a game-high 301 run metres including three line-breaks, and took over the Storm’s goal-kicking after an injury to Nick Meaney.
He also pulled off a try-saving tackle on Cody Ramsey in the second half.
Craig Bellamy said Faalogo, who replaced the retired Ryan Papenhuyzen in the Storm’s No.1 jersey, had been a stand-out performer in Melbourne’s lacklustre season.
“He was great tonight, but the last four to six weeks he’s been outstanding for us, not only his work-rate but some of the big plays,” the coach said.
“He’s come a long way in a short amount of time.”
While the home side, who had three players back on deck after Origin I, did enough to secure their fifth win, it wasn’t pretty at times.
In the first half they completed 24 of 25 sets, but it took until the 25th minute before they were finally able to penetrate the Roosters’ defence.
Returning from the Origin arena via the bench, Storm skipper Harry Grant burrowed over from dummy-half.
Roosters winger Billy Smith got his team on the board 10 minutes later as the visitors worked the ball wide, and the teams went into halftime with Melbourne up 6-4.
Forced to make 34 more tackles than the Storm, the workload took its toll on the leg-weary Sydneysiders.
After Melbourne playmaker Cameron Munster shunted the ball free from Walker, Faalogo scooped it up five metres from the tryline and dashed downfield.
While he was run down by Ramsey, Storm halfback Jahrome Hughes noted the Roosters defence lagging and put up a kick for Will Warbrick to score an easy try.
Melbourne’s other winger Moses Leo also got his own four-pointer with another long-range effort.
That cemented the Storm’s win over the third-placed Roosters, who have lost their past two matches.
With a history this season of second-half collapses, Bellamy said he was delighted they kept their composure, with the win moving Melbourne from 15th to 12th on the ladder.
“Probably the most pleasing aspect of it was, considering our record in second halves for most of this year, we didn’t lose confidence or didn’t lose belief in what we were doing,” he said.
“In the second half we just went out and continued on with what we did in the first half, which for me that was the most pleasing thing.”
AAP