Melbourne Storm has returned to the winner’s list in Round 5, defeating the Warriors on Easter Monday at AAMI Park.
In an entertaining contest in front of 18,179 people in Melbourne, Craig Bellamy’s side remained undefeated at home following a polished attacking performance.
Winger Marika Koroibete continued his blistering start to the 2015 season, scoring two tries and making a breakaway which lead to another combining well once again with left edge attacking partners Kurt Mann, Tohu Harris and Blake Green.
A frenetic opening to the match, typical of Storm-Warriors encounters saw the visitors get on the attack early.
Andrew McFadden’s side spilled the best of the opening chances with errors on either wing letting the hosts off the hook in the first five minutes of play.
Working their way into the contest in front of a strong crowd, Melbourne opened the scoring through the returning Mahe Fonua capitalising on a strong passage of play. Scoring in his first match for 2015, Fonua’s quick burst of pace made something out of nothing after Will Chambers had offloaded to keep the ball alive.
Another piece of individual brilliance led to Melbourne’s second score of the evening as the visitors doubled their advantage. Another offload, this time from interchange forward Felise Kaufusi created the chance, allowing winger Marika Koroibete to use his pace to burn the Warriors defence.
Late in the half, the visitors managed to breach the Melbourne defence and reduce the margin heading into half-time by way of barnstorming winger Manu Vatuvei.
Opening the second half strongly, as they did for much of the opening 40 minutes of play, Melbourne pushed to further consolidate their lead in the second stanza.
With the Warriors line holding fort, it took an impressive piece of team play for Storm to unlock the defence. A string of passes ended up in the hands of Chambers who extended Melbourne’s lead to 14 points.
Refusing to lie down, the Warriors hit back through former Storm forward Nathan Friend but minutes later Koroibete once again put his speed to good use and open up points for Melbourne, this time through forward Tim Glasby.
Sebastine Ikahihifo kept the Warriors alive with a four pointer in the 67th minute before Koroibete capped off a stellar performance with the sealing try.
Melbourne Storm 30
Tries: Mahe Fonua 22m, Marika Koroibete 33m, Will Chambers 47m, Tim Glasby 62m, Marika Koroibete 71m,
Goals: Cameron Smith 5/5
Warriors 14
Tries: Manu Vatuvei 38m, Nathan Friend 59m, Sebastine Ikahihifo 67m
Goals: Shaun Johnson 1/1
Crowd: 18,179
We return to AAMI Park in Round 7 to host the Roosters. Be there on Saturday 18 April, 7:30pm.
