Round 24
Storm 20 l. Warriors 24

2006 NRL Telstra Premiership Index [Table] [Draw] [Player Stats] [Club Headlines]

Location: Aus_NZ > National > First Grade Competition: NRL Telstra Premiership

Warriors stunning upset ends Storm's olympic park run
Sat August 19, 2006
The New Zealand Warriors have perhaps performed the upset of the season ending Melbourne's winning streak at home with a 24-20 victory.

In one of the better games of the season, both sides scored four tries apiece with goalkicking proving the difference as the Warriors inflicted the Storm's fourth loss of the season.

It was the Storm's first loss at Olympic Park since Round 15 of 2005, but maybe the result is not terribly surprising with the Storm now having the minor premiership wrapped up following the Bulldogs horrific loss to the Broncos last night. Perhaps the thought of a repeat of the Bulldogs injury toll played on the minds of the Storm.

However, given the intensity of the match that might be a discredit to the performance of the Warriors who used their big men to lay the platform against a Storm pack willing to take them head on.

The Storm opened the scoring in the 9th minute following an exciting opening by the home side which yielded a number of opportunities that the Warriors managed to shutdown until a Cooper Cronk cross field chip was taken by Matt Geyer in the in goal for the try.

The Warriors hit back against the momentum when Simon Mannering took advantage of the kiwi side's first opportunity in attack to put the Warriors ahead 6-4.

But a horrible mistake by the Warriors saw the Storm's kick off bounce into touch giving the home side a scrum feed 10m out. The Storm swung the ball wide with Steve Turner crossing in the corner to put Melbourne back ahead.

Some physical play in the forwards saw both teams go head to head in the middle of the park before the Warriors once again took the upper hand through a Manu Vatuvei try off a tremendous cut out pass by Steven Price in the 26th minute of play.

Once again the Storm replied just five minutes later as Matt King found space to score in the corner.

The Storm looked to be taking a 14-10 lead into halftime, but a penalty on the stroke of the break to the Warriors nudged the deficit back to only two.

Seven minutes into the second half the Warriors hit the lead again when a Grant Rovelli kicked rebounded fortunately for Brent Webb to collect and score.

Sticking to the script the Storm hit back minutes later once again with Greg Inglis stepping up to the plate with some magic to put the Storm ahead 20-18.

The next 23 minutes were some great football before the Warriors snatched the lead with seven minutes to go before full time. Vatuvei broke into the clear, drew Inglis and sent Brent Webb over for the try.

The Storm were unable to find the magic last minute play as they did against the Bulldogs and the Warriors hung on for an amazing upset.

The win puts the Warriors into 10th place on the ladder but still four points out of the eight with only two games remaining.

With their superior for and against, mathematically they are still a chance of making the finals but would require either the Eels or Dragons to lose all of their remaining three games and also hope the Panthers don't win their last two.

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