Finals Week Three
Melbourne Storm 24 d. St.George-Illawarra Dragons 10

2006 NRL Telstra Premiership Index [Table] [Draw] [Player Stats] [Club Headlines]

Location: Aus_NZ > National > First Grade Competition: NRL Telstra Premiership

The pivotal moment; the controversy, the lapse and it was all over
Mon September 25, 2006
Despite the contrasting tales of the two Qualifying Finals played out over the weekend, both matches were fiercely fought and hanged in the balance for a long, long time. But one moment in both matches proved pivotal, and both involved a lapse shortly after a controversial decision (or non-decision).

By now, every knows the tale of the Friday Night comeback by the Broncos - trailing 20-6 at half-time against a rampant Bulldogs and somehow manufacturing a rousing second half to storm home 37-20. There was a point at which the tide turned; a controversial decision followed by a lapse. In my view, the pivotal moment in this match made up of a missed forward pass from Justin Hodges to Shaun Berrigan (the controversial) and then the poor dummy-half pass from Ben Roberts which was swooped upon by the Broncos (the lapse). Let me explain ...

The Shaun Berrigan try has two wonderful pieces of play, linked by a controversial non-decision. The Justin Hodges kick return was sublime and showed why he's finally living up to the hype surrounding him a few seasons ago. The finishing if Shaun Berrigan was spectacular - he brushed Matt Utai and managed to hold off Willie Mason (who had no right to even be that close) and acrobatically put the ball over the line whilst on his head only inches in from the touchline. The pass from Hodges to Berrigan was visibly forward however, but with the speed that the Broncos turned defence into attack I doubt any referee or touch-judge could have ever recovered their position in order to see it and rule accordingly. Maybe this is a case for video referee intervention, but I tend to agree that unless you can have a camera that moves in line with the play, the possibility of parallex error rendering the footage useless will continue to preclude it from usage.

The Bulldogs could have recovered from conceding this try; it was 20-12 after all and the Broncos had only just died on the last tackle a few sets earlier. However, the lapse was about to occur and the Broncos took full advantage. The pass from Ben Roberts was terrible; it was reminiscent of Brett Hodgson's fateful State of Origin pass in the decider. Bulldogs forward Chris Armit was unable to clean up the loose ball; something strange in itself given his reputation for being error-free. The Broncos scoped the ball up and Dane Carlaw crashed over next tackle. Despite the fact the scoreline was 20-18 at that point, the game was a good as over - the pivotal moment had now come and gone and the rest is, as they say, history.

Whilst it took a little longer on the following evening for the pivotal moment to occur, it followed a similar pattern. The Dragons and the Storm slugged it out in a mostly uneventful match with flashes of brilliance played at a reasonably rapid pace. As has happened so many times in recent history, the game was on a knifes-edge at 12-6 with just over 20 minutes to go with both sides staring each other down waiting for someone to blink; and the Dragons blinked first. Admittedly, the Dragons only really blinked after having sand thrown in their face by the referee (or maybe the referees had the sand in their face?) and thus we have the pivotal moment; the controversy surrounding a Dragons "knock-on", followed by the lapse by Mark Gasnier defending against Matt King.

Making their way up-field through the middle of the ruck, Storm 5/8th-come-lock Scott Hill was taking on the Dragons defence and tried to slip an offload to a support player. The offload went forward and into the Dragons Ben Creagh who tried to catch it but spilt the ball forward too. The Dragons were expecting to get the scrum feed but when it was awarded to Melbourne, they questioned referee Steven Clark but to no avail. The initial knock-on was uncited by Clark, his view obscured. The touch-judges, who have proven themselves as useful as a gay rooster in a hen battery, also had nothing to say on the subject. The video replay, however, clearly showed the knock-on against the Storm but the recent change no longer allowing video referees to intervene meant that the decision was to stay wrong. Herein lies the controversial piece of the pivotal moment; yet another case for video referee intervention.

This alone shouldn't have hurt the Dragons. However, the Storm are renowned for their inventive set pieces and now was a perfect time to put one on. Earlier in the evening, viewers were witness to a scorching piece of play leading to the Storm's opening try. From a scrum, the Storm took the ball from lock and executed several second-man plays to open up a hole for Greg Inglis to slice through in a magical piece of coaching by Craig Bellamy. Unfortunately for the Dragons, this was not the last set piece to burn them. The Storm took the ball down the short side and put Matt King one-on-one with Dragons superstar Mark Gasnier. Unfortunately for Gasnier, his tendency to go high was futile against a player with one of the best fends in the game, and Matt King shoved away from Gasnier, drew youngster Brett Morris in-field and sent Steve Turner away for the match winner. One lapse from Mark Gasnier, forgetting the skills of the man he was marking, and the Dragons had blinked. Even with 20 minutes to go, everyone but the staunchest Dragons fans knew the game was gone.

In both instances, the referee cannot be blamed for the initial controversy. Any reasonable person can see that both mistakes were easy ones to make and the circumstances surrounding them made it very difficult for the man in the middle. It was just unfortunate for both the Bulldogs and the Dragons, but it didn't cost them the game; they cost themselves the game. But, the adoption of video technology for such times is something that needs to be looked at seriously. The current excuses for not adopting video technology more widely are valid, but not seeking to solve the issues is unacceptable. Tens of millions per year are spent on the TV rights by the free-to-air and cable providers; so why can't some money be spent on solving the technical issues? It shouldn't matter if it can't be done during the regular season because not all grounds will facilitate the necessary solution. It CAN be done during the Finals and should be - the stakes are much higher in September and October.

All this aside, lets not take anything away from the victors; the Broncos and the Storm. They capitalised on the lapses of their opponents as any great side should do and as a result, they find themselves going head to head on the last weekend of the season. I just hope that when we see the pivotal moment on October 1, it's a piece of brilliance or wonderful application in taking advantage of the opponents' lapse WITHOUT the controversy nearby. The players and the fans deserve no less.


2nd Qualifying Final: Full-time - Storm 24 bt. Dragons 10
Sat September 23, 2006
The 2006 NRL Minor Premiers, the Melbourne Storm, are through to the Grand Final after prevailing 24-10 over the Dragons in a tight and fast-paced encounter.

The game began as an end-to-end affair, with two disallowed tries in the first 10 minutes. The first went against the Storm, with Greg Inglis losing the ball over the line. The second was against the Dragons, with Gorrell losing the ball just short of the line.

The Storm struck first in the 14th minute, with Greg Inglis scoring off a beatiful set scrum play. Cameron Smith broke the record of Mal Cochrane for the record points tally for a hooker in the NRL with the conversion and the Storm were away.

Eight minutes later the Dragons were across, but the try was pulled up due to a forward pass - the last pass from Cooper to Naiqama called bad. However, the Dragons got on the board 3 minutes later, with a try through Matt Cooper after a sublime offload short of the line by Ashton Sims.

The Storm were guilty of making silly mistakes ... almost always resulting in penalties. This is evident from the 6-1 penalty count in favour of the Dragons, something their fans would be slacked-jawed over given the history with referee Steven Clark.

The Dragons, however, were also guilty of mistakes and costly turnovers. Luke Bailey has been in for special attention by the Storm tacklers, losing the ball three times in the first half. One of those drops proved very costly, and the Storm were in again courtesy of a fantastic effort by Matt King to pull down a Cooper Cronk cross-field kick and wrestle with Dragons fullback Clint Greenshields to get it down. Smith kicked truly and the Storm led 12-6 after 28 minutes.

The scoring ended there - however Storm halfback Cooper Cronk missed a field-goal by half a metre with 6 minutes left on the clock. This appeared a little negative, and should give the Dragons some hope coming in to the second half. The Storm looked the better side at the end of the first half, but the Dragons were still in the hunt.

The second half started with plenty of fire, but a dangerous spear tackle by the Dragons Justin Poore on Matt Geyer saw him put on report and the Storm go on the attack. Poore will likely have a case to answer, with some similarities to the Danny Buderus tackle in Week 1 of the finals. From the penalty the Storm nearly put another four-pointer on when Greg Inglis fumbled the ball after reeling in a kick from an improbable position. From there, the game got into a grinding contest.

Some quick hands in the 52nd minute saw Michael Crocker make a big run up field. The Dragons Wes Naiqama came up with a try-saver on the Storm's big prop Ben Cross, showing the kind of disregard for self-preservation that was common place in the 1980's. He got up and continued the game, but Greg Inglis was forced from the field with a shoulder complaint.

The grinding contest continued, but space was becoming easier to find in the middle of the park amongst the tiring forwards from both sides. Billy Slater threatened to run the length of the field on more than one occasion returning ineffectual kicks from the Dragons playmakers, but the Dragons held on.

Unfortunately, it took an unsighted mistake from the referees and a bad miss by Dragons' star Mark Gasnier to break the drought. The Storm got the scrum feed after Scott Hill appeared to offload the ball forward into the Dragons Ben Creagh, who fumbled the ball as well. The replay showed the ball went forward into Ben Creagh, but the feed was awarded to the Storm. From the scrum, the Storm put on another set-play and Matt King's strength one-on-one with Mark Gasnier forced Dragons winger Brett Morris in and Turner was presented with a saloon passage to the line. Another great kick from Storm rake Cameron Smith saw the scoreline at 18-6 after 60 minutes and the game looked gone.

The Melbourne Storm bench added a significant amount of punch to their pack, with Adam Blair in particular playing massively strong in his first finals series. Ben Cross and Michael Crocker (before he was injured) added plenty of hard running and this made it difficult for the Dragons to stop any momentum. The Storm also repelled everything the Dragons threw at them, with desparation hurting the slickness of their attack.

Wes Naiqama nearly put his stamp on the game in attack in the 68th minute with a scything run to the try line, but he came up centimetres short and the video referee gave it the red light. Naiqama's effort was very strong, but he looked to bomb a try by coming inside a third time instead of going back outside. The Storm looked home, but there was still a twist left in the game.

From the restart, the Dragons spun it from left to right on the last, and Mark Gasnier showed his skills one-on-one to get on the outside and put Brett Morris away in the corner to breathe some life into the Dragons finals campaign. Unfortunately for the Dragons, Mathew Head was unable to kick the conversion - in fact it was a bad miss - and the Dragons were still 8 points adrift with 10 minutes to go. It capped off a somewhat forgettable night for the Dragons half, who's skillful kicking game and crisp passing game were obviously left on the bench.

A frantic final 10 minutes ensued, but the Dragons couldn't come up with the magical play - pushing the ball and the Storm having all the answers. Cameron Smith, in a typical big game performance, cleaned up a Barrett chip kick in a prime example of the Storm always looking in control. Greg Inglis came back to the field, his shoulder injury not being a problem for him.

The game was put beyond all doubt when Antonio Kaufusi bustled through the tired Dragons defence in the 77th minute, and Matt Geyer added the extras to make the score 24-10. Wes Naiqama almost scored a consolation try, but it would have been cold comfort to the Dragons - another campaign with so much promise coming up short.

Prior to this game, I was of the belief that the Storm had little say in the result and it was all about which Dragons side showed up. And whilst I am not prepared to say I was completely wrong, the Storm had a big say in proceedings by forcing the Dragons to play uncomfortably and eventually the pressure applied led to the Dragons of old resurfacing throughout the game. The Storm's performance was clinical, and they never really looked like losing once they got their noses in front at 12-6. Halfback Cooper Cronk, centre Matt King and props Brett White and Antonio Kaufusi were all outstanding in a tough, disciplined performance with Matt King probably shading Cronk for best on ground.

For the Dragons, Wes Naiqama and Ben Hornby were unfortunate to be on a losing side. Jason Ryles had one of his better games, but still didn't do enough in defence to stop the Storm's roll on. Clint Greenshields was very good until he went off injured, and the shuffling of Hornby back to custodian effected the Dragons structure, with Barrett and Head never really gelling as a combination when needed.

So, we are set for a historic Grand Final - the Storm vs. the Broncos - the first time in history no Sydney team will contest the Grand Final. Hopefully the fans will turn out in numbers and fill the vast Telstra Stadium on the first Sunday in October to watch what is shaping up to be a fantastic Grand Final. Please tune in to rleague.com through the week for all of the news, team lists, and views on the biggest weekend in Australian Winter Sport - the Telstra NRL Grand Final!

For a full Live Commentary account, blow-by-blow, click here.

Sat September 23, 2006
• Live Commentary - Dragons v Storm
  
Sat September 23, 2006
• Still under the weather from 1999, Dragons face new Storm
  
Fri September 22, 2006
• Can the Dragons avenge 1999?
  
Thu September 21, 2006
• Dragons hold the advantage over Storm
  
Wed September 20, 2006
• Final four's chance to reignite Finals Fever
  
Tue September 19, 2006
• Gasnier Named for Storm Clash
  

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