Gold Coast Titans NRL 2009They were nearly $5 dollar outsiders, heading to Melbourne to face the Storm and they didn’t have Scott Prince on board to help. But it didn’t matter, the plucky Titans side causing a major boilover – wining 18-6.

On 2 previous trips to Olympic Park the Titans have leaked near 100 points and had only managed to score 10. But this was ancient history as they reversed the trend tonight.

Prior to tonight, the Storm had only lost 3 games from 45 at Olympic Park – proving just what a huge task this was by the underrated Titans outfit.

It could have been a bigger margin, but the Storm defence remained solid after facing plenty of traffic at times.

The Gold Coast side had the better of field position and plenty of possession as they threw wave after wave of attack at Melbourne.

Storm skipper Cam Smith started at pivot tonight with Greg Inglis again in the centres and Ryan Hinchcliffe handed the hooking duties.

The continued experiment is obviously not working as expected, coach Craig Bellamy altering things mid-way through the match.

It took nearly half an hour for the first try to come, the Titans getting off to a positive start – touching down first.

Big Luke Bailey burst on to a Nathan Friend ball close to the line and as the Storm defence tried to hold him out close to the line, he reached backwards with his hands over his head to touchdown and score.

The Storm were scrambling madly in defence, persistent Cooper Cronk doing well to hold up Kevin Gordon as he tried in vein to plant the ball down.

Storm work horse Dallas Johnson did everything he could in defence, making a massive 60 tackles for the game – working himself to a standstill.

But the frustration was evident at times for the Storm, their side giving away silly penalties at crucial times to make things harder for themselves.

Reborn winger Chris Walker scored for the Titans in the second half, finding the tryline after a nice line break from centre Brett Delaney. Walker looking to have recovered well from injury and is settling into the squad.

It took the Storm nearly an hour to score their first try, coming through bench player Joe Tomane, the rookie showing good speed and swerve to get around the defenders to touchdown.

But as Melbourne crash to another defeat, this time at home – the concern remains over their lack of a genuine pivot. The problem with moving Cam Smith to 5/8 is they instantly lose their potentcy at the ruck.




By ricky

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