Melbourne too good for Halifax

Melbourne Storm has warmed-up for its World Club Challenge clash against Leeds next Friday night with a hard-fought 26-10 win against a committed Halifax outfit at Shay Stadium in front of more than 4000 fans in freezing conditions.

Billy Slater was easily the star of the show, delighting the vocal crowd by crossing the try-line twice, taking away the bottle of Moet as the man-of-the-match.

While the Storm were expecting Halifax to come out firing, the level of skill and determination displayed by the home team surprised everyone, including the home fans.

And it was the home side that took the lead. After the Storm had blown a couple of early chances to score, Halifax took the lead on 20 minutes, with Jon Goddard crossing in the corner to send the home fans into raptures.

However, the excitement was short lived as a line-break and off-load by Steve Turner sent Billy Slater on his way for the first of his two tries under the posts.

Tries from Sam Tagataese and Israel Folau rounded out the scoring for the first-half and everyone in the crowd was expecting the Storm boys to run up a cricket score in the second-half.

However, to everyone