NRL 2022, round 2: Melbourne Storm defeat Rabbitohs in golden point, Latrell Mitchell field goal
One of the most hyped comebacks threatened to be one of most underwhelming until Latrell Mitchell did Latrell Mitchell things to provide an incredible finish to the game.
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Welcome back Latrell Mitchell.
One of the most hyped comebacks threatened to be one of most underwhelming on Thursday night until Latrell Mitchell did Latrell Mitchell things.
A 48-metre two-point field goal from Mitchell to level the scores in the dying seconds, and take the game into golden point, flipped the script on a match that the Rabbitohs did not look like winning for 69 minutes.
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And when the tide turned Mitchell had his superstar fingerprints all over the Rabbitohs’ late surge. But it wasn’t enough to earn the Rabbitohs a win at AAMI Park after Storm fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen broke the 14-all deadlock with a field goal in the first period of golden point.
Before the clutch field goal, Mitchell put Jaxson Paulo over then had a hand in winger Campbell Graham’s try.
Most pundits will dissect fullback Mitchell’s comeback from a six-game suspension as a mixed performance but an autopsy on South Sydney’s new-look halves combination must be ordered.
Five-eighth Cody Walker and rookie halfback Lachlan Ilias have mostly struggled to fire a shot over the last two rounds. Ilias will get better in time, but Souths coach Jason Demetriou has no time to waste with the Sydney Roosters and then Penrith next in line. Last year’s grand finalists are facing a 0-4 start to the season.
Their ineffectiveness should raise questions about how long Demetriou will persist with the duo before pulling the trigger on a Mitchell move into the halves to partner Walker. A move which Mitchell has mooted himself in the pre-season.
“For a power athlete, Latrell has beautiful hands,” Fox League’s Greg Alexander said.
Mitchell’s first run in almost seven months was pensive; he ran hard but danced sideways when the Storm defensive line approached. Then nervously fumbled a Jahrome Hughes grubber on the line.
Then there was the booing, which happened on more than one occasion on Thursday night.
Even before the football had landed in Mitchell’s hand for his first carry after 90 seconds, the booing rang out through AAMI Park.
The game’s most polarising figure was back.
The icy reception was telling though, Mitchell’s remorse over the Joey Manu tackle, revealed in an exclusive interview with Fox League, had clearly not generated the desired good will among NRL fans.
Mitchell can then only expect feverish hostility from the Sydney Roosters faithful next Friday night.
The headlines around Mitchell’s return from suspension were loud this week and will only be louder leading into round three when he comes face-to-face with former teammate Manu.
The damage Mitchell’s high shot did to Manu’s face back in round 24 has been well publicised. So was the displeasure over the tackle from his former teammates at the Bondi club who weren’t shy in letting Mitchell know exactly how they felt about him on the night.
The fallout robbed Manu the chance to support an already injury-ravaged Roosters outfit when the side needed it most heading into the finals series.
But it also robbed South Sydney fans of the best possible chance of overcoming the Penrith Panthers in the grand final, with their best player, and most lethal player, Mitchell forced to watch from the Suncorp Stadium sidelines.
While Latrell has apologised for the hit, the tension between the arch rivals ahead of next Friday’s blockbusters is still palpable.
For Mitchell, the challenge now is to get South Sydney’s campaign on track but to tame the emotions, or the ‘beast’ as he described it earlier in the week.
If he doesn’t, the Roosters, who Mitchell believes will be ‘headhunting’ him get the better of the two-time premiership winner.
STORM TEST BELLAMY'S NERVES IN MILESTONE MATCH
-Russell Gould
Melbourne Storm just win milestone games.
But they aren’t supposed to do it by the skin of their teeth, especially for their 62-year-old coach in his 500th game who is prone to combusting at the slightest of errors.
That’s how it played out in a wild finish at AAMI Park which included a come-from-nowhere two-point field goal from returning South Sydney superstar Latrell Mitchell which sent the match to extra time, where it was won by a golden-point wobbler from Melbourne’s own magic man Ryan Papenhuyzen who secured the 15-14 win.
“We got lucky, but sometimes you deserve your luck,” Storm coach Craig Bellamy said after the match.
A second half littered with more bad than good in slippery conditions which produced errors en masse, came alive in the final 15 minutes as Souths, winless in Melbourne in 17 previous trips Souths, scored three late tries to close Storm’s 14-0 lead.
When Mitchell missed a sideline conversion for the final try, his third miss from three attempts, the chance to end that drought looked done.
Then, to compound issues for Souths, a fumble in the end-goal from the kick-off, forced a line-drop out, which somehow ended with Rabbitoh Damien Cook.
No one was expecting what came next as Mitchell, who had been booed all night by the locals, hoofed the two-point field goal from 45m out to level the scores before another right side burst nearly caught Storm off-guard.
But in the third stanza another Souths error, a 20th for the match, gifted Storm the field position needed for Papenhuyzen, who avoided early goal kicking duties because of a dodgy ankle, sidestepped oncoming traffic then slotted the magic ball.
Bellamy revealed Papenhuyzen had hardly done any kicking in practice as he continued to recover from an ankle injury the coach called “a bad one”.
“I knew he was going to take the kick, but I must say I didn’t like his kick. I thought it was going left,” Bellamy said. “I thought he’d missed it but then he started jumping up and down. It was an interesting way to finish the game.
“He hasn’t been kicking at all because of his ankle injury. It was a bad injury. I don’t think he actually ran for eight weeks in the pre-season. He’s only done kicking this week. We don’t want him kicking because there’s a chance of stirring it up.”
While Bellamy saw mistakes among his men in South Sydney’s late surge as they reeled in a 14-0 deficit to send the game to extra time, he also saw enough effort to be proud of.
Storm played 20 minutes of the second-half with 12 men after two sin-bins and skipper Jesse Bromwich said they wanted to dig in for Bellamy, his only NRL coach, and someone who made them all want to be better.
“We played half the second half a man down, but it was a huge second half coming off a five-day turnaround and a few injuries last week,” he said.
“I’ve got to give it to Paps (Papenhuyzen), it was a huge play on a huge night for our club.
“It was Craig’s 500th game, and every game he treats as if it was his last, so to do that for him was special.”
It had been 321 days since Storm had played a home game and with significant manpower on the sidelines struggled for composure late, but still the NRL’s most imperious undefeated runs continued.
The return of Storm heavyweights Cameron Munster, Harry Grant and Jesse Bromwich, for the most part, outweighed Souths getting back superstar Mitchell, for the first time in seven months
Grant was especially electric as he took over full-time hooker duties from the injured Brandon Smith setting up Melbourne’s opening two tries first by foot, then by hand after a backfield break left Souths Tom Burgess slipping and sliding as he went on a 60m run before finding Munster.
His Cooper Cronk-like kick to set up Xavier Coates for the first of what could be many AAMI Park tries was evidence of yet another weapon in Grant’s ever-growing arsenal.
A three-try opening half, aided by 11 errors and a horror completion rate from the clunky Rabbitohs, gave Melbourne a 14-0 lead at the break.
Two more denied tries in the early stages of the second half suggested a Storm walkover but as the bad outweighed the good, from both teams, which was enough to send Bellamy storming to the back of his box after another Melbourne error, Souths found some pushback.
Streams of efforts down the right hand side of the Melbourne defence were undone by clumsy finishing but as Storm errors were compounded buy penalties there was a breakthrough.
After losing 50-0 last year to Melbourne, the Rabbits got a 68th minute try through Alex Johnston and as the clocked ticked down, and Justin Olam was sent to the bin, for repeat offences, with the siren in sight, Souths scored again, this time Jaxson Paulo making up for a few fumbled earlier attempts.
The push continued when Campbell Graham scored, then came Mitchell’s kick, then came extra time, and then came another Storm win.
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