Melbourne look good again this year and they just had an ominous air about them in their 32-18 win over the New Zealand Warriors infront of 20,084 in Melbourne.
This was a really tough, physical match and both sides will be very sore today after that one.
Melbourne looked pretty good although not at their best in this first game. They’ve had a terrible pre season after having to deal with that bullshit game in the UK but you could see they just fell back into old habits, and those habits are winning habits.
Billy Slater was on fire, he had a hat trick of tries after about half an hour.
The big positive I thought for the Storm was the fast, tough play of their forwards. They went toe to toe with a Warriors side that just went at them for 80 minutes and they came out on top.
As for the Warriors, they looked good.
Big and strong as always, but they look sharp, mobile and they played some smart football at times rather than just trying to use their size to beat their opponent.
They did however make a few dumb mistakes, including kicking over the deadball line on three straight kickoffs.
The impressive thing I thought was how physical and sharp Warriors backs played.
Tate showed his class and Ropati was great. Manu Vatuvei was in everything, good and bad, but when he had the ball in his hands he was nothing short of a monster, scoring a try with three Storm players trying to tackle them.
He needs to be moved into the forwards though because he can’t catch a bomb to save his life!
Both teams would be pretty happy after that hit out.
One footnote on the game, the Storm have been fined $10,000 for being late in running out onto the field for the kickoff of both halves.
