NRL News
Storm slip past Panthers
Storm 30 def Panthers 20

Melbourne have held off a late Panthers fight back to win in slippery conditions at Olympic Park tonight. The Storm were out to 24 – 8 at one stage until the ‘never say die’ Panthers strung some tries togther and gave the undefeated NRL comp leaders a scare.

A big game from the Melbourne forwards really helped the speed men over come the opposition. An agressive showing from Storm forwards; featuring Crossman up against his old club – really stung the Panther pack.

Penrith were killed by their mistackle stats – 31 in total – simply too much arm grabbing and poor reads in defence to win the game. The penalities were in the Panthers favour for once, but this didn’t help overall with other areas lacking.

An injury cloud hangs over Luke Priddis who seemed to be playing hurt after an ankle problem in the first half.

For the Storm, it was a top shelf showing from hooker Smith after backing up and halfback Cronk – both scoring tries and laying on some fine attacking movements for their team mates. Cronk showing good awareness in attack and great footspeed to exploit the tired Penrith forwards.

NRL news looks forward to the Storm v Cowboys and Storm v Manly as these games should be classic’s for this year.

NRL News Team