Storm hold out Brave Tigers:
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Melbourne Storm 18 defeat Wests Tigers 16 at Olympic Park.
Wests Tigers started the match strongly and kept hold of an 80% possession advantage for the first 15 minutes. Tigers continued to look sharp early on with solid, error free football.
The Storm eased into the game and eventually showed flashes of their brilliance from 2005, but ill-discipline continued to hurt them. Hold downs, leg pulls were seeing them give penalties away in defence. Even worse were the silly play the ball penalties while in possession, such as playing the ball tunnel style without using the foot, actuallyost them first tackle possession twice.
The Storm kicking game was impressive however, with Cronk and Smith both having the ball on a string for short and long game punts. Both sides impressed with fitness and error free football for so early in the year - Storm young gun Israel Falou had some impressive touches and scored on debut in impressive style, reeling in a high bomb and barging through several Tigers on line defenders to touch down.
Marshall only had limited touches for the Tigers, but his shoulder survived the test and his bigger frame will assist his robustness and tackle bust opportunities in 2007.
While Melbourne's class eventually shone through, impressive signs were seen throughout for the Wests Tigers - noteably in their overall defence. The Tigers repelled several back to back Storm raids and were in the game until the final 30 seconds.
Interestingly the game at times looked like an edition of Wrestle Mania, with both sides obviously spending many hours of play the ball slow downs. Arm holds and wrestling flips were almost occuring every tackle, Hampstead did give many penalties away in this area but both sides persisted. It seems this wrestling them will prevail in 2007 as mentioned by many commentators including the team at NRLnews.com
