The Melbourne Storm have shown that they certainly are not spent forces in the 2023 NRL season with a 54-10 victory over an awful Cronulla Sharks side at AAMI Park in front of 20,000 fans.
Things started well for Melbourne when a Harry Grant grubber came off the upright padding and into the not so safe hands of Tui Kamikamica who made an easy put down look tough as he nearly lost the ball for the Storm's first try after just four minutes.
The Sharks hit back soon after as what looked to be a poor kick from Matt Moylan was actually pinpoint to Ronaldo Mulitalo who offloaded to Teig Wilton to score. With scores locked up at 6 all, Nicho Hynes' penalty attempt foreshadowed how bad of a day that he was going to have when his shot at goal came off the uprights.
Things unravelled for the Sharks with incomplete sets in their own end putting themselves under pressure when Will Warbrick took advantage to score in the corner. The Storm then went over when Harry Grant backed up a Tui Kamikamica short offload to score under the posts.
It was one-way traffic for the home-side when Harry Grant got the ball down from dummy half just after the half-hour mark.
The Storm then added two more tries shy of the half-hour mark when Xavier Coates got a quick double, first outleaping the Sharks defence on a cross-field kick and then some awful defence got Melbourne through and some magical work from Coates to catch a lofted pass to score untouched.
Trailing 34-6 at half time, the Sharks needed to get everything right in the second half and letting the ball go dead from the kick-off did not achieve that at all but for once their mistake was unpunished.
The Storm added a penalty goal a few minutes after half-time after the Sharks failed to get their drop-out to go 10m. Things continued as one-way traffic and it was a royal try on the Kings birthday when Josh King went through a massive gap and beat the Sharks defence to score.
Things then fizzled for a while before the Storm were able to put two more tries on the board when Reimis Smith went over the play after Nelson Asofa-Solomona burst through and the Sharks defence was scrambling. Jahrome Hughes then took the easy gap through the soft Sharks defence to score and put the score beyond 50.
The Sharks then scored a late consolation try taking advantage of a numerical advantage following Christian Welch's sin binning for a hip drop tackle.
Next weekend, the Melbourne Storm head to Campbelltown Stadium for a clash with the Tigers on Saturday evening whilst the Sharks play host to the Canterbury Bulldogs on Sunday afternoon.