Rivals Dish Up Dramatic Draw

Steve Matai (4) gets to grips with Storm's Kevin Proctor

Melbourne Storm 10-10 Manly Sea Eagles (After Golden Point Period)

NRL Premiership Round 10
AAMI Park
Attendance: 12,921

There are occasions in sport where fairness prevails. 

Tonight at AAMI Park was one example as neither Melbourne Storm nor Manly Sea Eagles deserved to lose this fraught and frenetic contest.

With the snarling, fierce rivals unable to be separated by 80 minutes of a see-saw encounter, the game went to a ten minute ‘golden point’ period, yet even this couldn’t yield what would have been an undeserving winner in such a competitive encounter.

Both sides, as a result of the first draw in the competition this year, move north on the ladder but there are two ways in which the respective camps will review the affair.

For the hosts, they have ended their two-match losing streak which was so nearly extended to three games, but for the boot of Cameron Smith, which rescued them in the final minute of regulation time.

For the visitors – who, unquestionably brought their A-game south – their arch-enemies are now winless in three games with the second placed Roosters to face before the State of Origin series gets underway in early June.

One man who won’t be in the sky blue jersey of New South Wales to face the Queenslanders this Winter though is Sea Eagles Captain Jamie Lyon, who registered all of his side’s points. 

The baby-faced centre, who is known for opting out of the interstate games, had bagged eight of those points within the opening seven minutes. 

Lyon’s second minute penalty kick was added to five minutes later when he converted his own try, which arrived after Sisa Waqa fumbled a Daly Cherry-Evans high ball.

If Melbourne were shell-shocked though, they didn’t show it. 

Craig Bellamy’s men – who never led at any point – grew in to the game slowly but surely, allowing the visitors to speculatively throw the ball around in greasy conditions.

While Sea Eagles hooker Matt Ballin was exceptional on the rare occasions he had the ball in hand, giant centre Steve Matai looked just as good in the defence which appeared impregnable out wide.

Even under the extensive pressure of five consecutive sets, Matai’s well marshalled troops in the back line still wouldn’t buckle or budge.

Not many sides come to the reigning champion’s back yard and keep them scoreless for close to sixty minutes. 

In an act of desperation, captain Smith knocked over an easy penalty just to get on the scoreboard and within touching distance of Manly who were eking out every last second.

After a disappointing first half kicking game from the Storm, five eighth Gareth Widdop took it upon himself to influence the host’s efforts. It worked too, when he dropped in a delightful lob for Maurice Blair to gazump a leaden-footed Matai and steal over for a converted try.

The day-trippers from Sydney’s north beaches weren’t done there though. After interchange George Rose fumbled, the referees decided the ball had been illegally stripped and so Lyon kicked the resultant penalty to take his, and his side’s, tally to ten and make for slight breathing space.

Within sight of the finishing line, Manly prop Brent Kite’s eagerness at the ruck saw him caught offside however, and thus allowed Smith to take the game in to the sudden death shootout.

Amid the long range, speculative field goal attempts in overtime, Cooper Cronk’s effort from the 20 metre pocket was most kickable, but he passed up the opportunity, and with it the chance of an unlikely victory.