Storm brewing as Ryles gets sent

Melbourne has clinically disposed of St George Illawarra 26-nil at Olympic Park tonight, in a fiery contest littered with all-in brawls, sin-binnings, send-offs and general bad blood between the two sides.

The Storm held a narrow 4-nil lead after a tight opening to the contest, before the game was turned on its head in the space of three drama charged minutes.

Dragons pivot Jamie Soward took exception to a Cooper Cronk tackle in the 23rd minute, sparking an all-in brawl that spilled over onto the sidelines.

Melbourne were reduced to 11 men following referee Gavin Badger’s sin-binning of Billy Slater and Adam Blair for fighting, while the Dragons gained a numerical advantage, losing only Soward.

But that advantage lasted all of about two minutes.

Controversy-prone prop Jason Ryles received his marching orders for kicking while packing into a scrum in the 25th minute, leaving the rare sight of an 11 on 11 game of rugby league for the duration of the sin-binnings.

The Storm retained their full compliment of players and went in to score in the 39th minute through hulking prop Jeff Lima, and the writing was on the wall for the Dragons, with the joint-venture ten points and a man down at the break.

St George Illawarra held out valiantly until the 57th minute, but when Cronk hit Jeremy Smith with a flat ball to put the Storm over for their third try, the floodgates opened.

Tempers again flared at this point with Smith taking offence to a late hit from Justin Poore after grounding the ball, and both sides briefly threatened to come to blows for a second time in the game.

The home side went the length of the field in the set following the restart, this time Jeremy Smith provided the final pass for Steve Turner to cross in the corner, with Cameron Smith nailing the touchline conversion to make it 22-nil with a quarter of the game remaining.

Veteran utility Matt Geyer got in on the act with a four-pointer in the 66th minute, putting the polish on Melbourne’s 13th win of the season.

Earlier, a knock on over the line from Matt Cooper cost the Dragons a dream start in the fifth minute, and less than three minutes later Melbourne had travelled 100 metres to plant the ball down up the other end.

Israel Folau soared above the pack AFL-style to bring down a Cooper Cronk bomb, before regaining his balance and powering over to put the Storm in front.

Smith’s conversion attempt from out wide split the uprights and the Storm were playing from the front.

Dragons coach Nathan Brown was less than impressed with Badger’s decision to dismiss Ryles, but paid tribute to his players’ courage and tenacity following the game.

“The referee ruined what was going to be a good tough game of football basically, you’d probably call it a hasty decision,” said Brown.

“I don’t think anybody in the rugby league world thought that warranted a sendoff.

“I don’t know what the score would have ended up, but it certainly would have been closer,” said the Huddersfield-bound coach.

Melbourne mentor Craig Bellamy was happy with the performance of his side, and was impressed with the way the Dragons stuck at it in trying circumstances.

“They were a credit to their club to play like that with only 12 men, but I though our guys were really good,” said Bellamy, before providing a tongue-in-cheek appraisal of the Ryles incident.

“20 years ago, if you didn’t kick in a scrum, you’d get dropped the next week”.

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