Melbourne Storms To 18-4 Win

The Age

Tuesday May 13, 2008

Stathi Paxinos

NSW state-of-origin hopefuls Brett White and Kurt Gidley both had injury scares in the opening minutes of Melbourne Storm's 18-4 National Rugby League win over Newcastle at Olympic Park last night.

However, Blues selectors could be saved from desperately reaching for back-up plans before the team is announced today, as both played out the game after spending time off the field in the hands of medical staff.

In a remarkable game, most concern centred on Storm prop White who injured his shoulder during a gang tackle after five minutes. White was wheeled away in pain and initial fears were that he had broken his left collar bone. However, the prop returned to the bench from the dressing room about 10 minutes later with Storm medicos believing it was just a stinger in the shoulder.

White, who is in contention to regain the place in the Blues front row that he lost after the second origin clash last year, returned to the field after 30 minutes of play.

Knights full-back Gidley, who has been the centre of speculation that he would be named in the halves with Greg Bird in the Blues team today, received a facial injury within the first minutes. He was checked by the Knights' medical staff but was allowed back on the field, where he did not shy away from the action, being involved in saving tackles on Dallas Johnson, Michael Crocker and White and was denied a try in the final minutes before half-time only by a desperate Billy Slater tackle.

The game itself was a real arm wrestle, with remarkably neither side getting on the scoreboard by half-time. The Knights. which were thumped 44-0 last year by Melbourne at Olympic Park, were brilliant in defence but had few attacking chances as they held off wave after wave of Storm attack.

Melbourne, which had eight players backing up from the Centenary Test last Friday, had the best chances but were denied by some desperate tryline defence.

Storm finally cracked the Knights line on 52 minutes and it was no surprise which combination proved successful. Half-back Cooper Cronk launched a cross field kick towards right centre Israel Folau, who again outleaped the Knights defence to snatch the ball, spin around and fell over the tryline to score.

Cameron Smith made the conversion to give the Storm a 6-0 lead.

Folau got his double on 66 minutes when he received a smart flick pass from Michael Crocker and then weaved his way through the last line of defence to score. Smith was again successful with the conversion to give the Storm a 12-0 lead.