Melbourne Storm thrash Wests Tigers

SYDNEY: A night Wests Tigers players – and fans – will quickly want to forget ended with a 16-66 loss to a rampant Storm side at Sunshine Coast Stadium.
Melbourne scored seven tries in the first half — including an incredible five in the opening 15 minutes — en route to the biggest score a side has registered in 2021.
Wests Tigers scored three times in the final 25 minutes, but that came after an opening 55 minutes that had people scouring for the record books for all the wrong reasons as far as they were concerned.
The Storm had 10 different try-scorers, with Reimis Smith and Jahrome Hughes crossing for doubles, but, amazingly, the competition’s No.2 try-scorer Josh Addo-Carr and fellow winger George Jennings didn’t get on the scoresheet.
Wests Tigers scored three late consolation tries with a welcome chunk of possession to stop the Storm setting any records.
Queensland State of Origin forwards Christian Welch and Harry Grant started from the bench and Joe Ofahengaue had limited input, as Melbourne turned in a blistering display.
Maroons coach Paul Green will have to weigh up what to do with the trio after they had restricted involvement in the unceremonious shellacking.
Welch, who has now only played 69 minutes in the last three weeks, was expected to be the Maroons’ main metre-eater in this series after a standout 2020 Origin campaign.
While he ground out a commendable 124 metres against the Tigers, with 15 minutes left to play in the game he was visibly struggling for breath.
Similarly, Ofahengaue had just 27 minutes of game time and 34 metres with the ball in hand.
Storm coach Craig Bellamy said Welch wanted to get plenty of minutes into his legs.
“I didn’t want to start him tonight and he was happy enough with that,” coach Craig Bellamy said.
“The 12 minutes he played in Origin was about the only minutes he had in a month.
“I probably wanted to get him off 10-15 minutes before the end of the game if everything went okay. It didn’t.
“I only had one player left on the bench at the end. It was an unbelievable game how it went points-wise, but I can’t remember the last time we ran out of players on our bench and had a guy in the bin.
“Christian was [struggling], but he had this idea in his head he wanted to get as much time under his belt so he can feel confident for Origin.”