Storm 38 Roosters 4
MELBOURNE - Melbourne regained their attacking mojo as Greg Inglis put a horror fortnight behind him to steer the Storm to a 38-4 win over the Sydney Roosters in their NRL clash at Olympic Park on Saturday night.
Inglis claimed a double as the Storm scored seven
tries to one to claw their way back into the NRL top four after being temporarily overtaken by Brisbane.
The test superstar missed the past two matches after he was sidelined by the club after being charged with assaulting his girlfriend.
He was given the green light to return this week and made his giant presence felt.
In his absence, the Storm attack struggled, with coach Craig Bellamy describing them as "limp".
But as the club celebrated their final ever match at Olympic Park, known as "The Graveyard", with games to move to the new stadium next door, it looked like the Storm of old.
Despite the wet conditions they showed confidence and class against the hapless Roosters, whose miserable season can't be over soon enough.
Steve Turner started the scoreboard ticking over in the fifth minute when he dived across in the corner after the ball went through five sets of Storm hands.
The hard-working winger, signed to the Bulldogs for next season, made it a double in the second half in his final Olympic Park game.
Then in the 22nd minute halfback Cooper Cronk turned a short ball back inside for a busy Billy Slater, who raced away and found Inglis for the centre to stroll to the line.
Seven minutes later centre Will Chambers broke through some flimsy defence and scored with his converted try pushing the score out to a halftime lead of 18-0.
The Roosters opened the scoring in the second half as they caught Melbourne's defence napping with Shaun Kenny-Dowall rewarded, however there was little else to cheer about for the visitors.
Within eight minutes two of the vocal home crowd's favourite sons, Slater and Inglis had both scored to make sure the iced champagne was put to use.
Slater simply outpaced four would-be defenders after bustling prop Adam Blair, who was a stand-out, got a great ball away in a tackle.
And then Inglis took the ball at dummy half a metre from the line and threw a massive dummy before stepping straight over the line to touch down.
He could have made it a hat-trick in the final minute but fumbled the ball as he attempted to ground it over the line.
Melbourne Storm 38 (G Inglis 2 S Turner 2 W Chambers B Slater A Tolman tries C Smith 5 goals) bt Sydney Roosters 4 (S Kenny-Dowall try) at Olympic Park. Referee: Jared Maxwell, Brett Suttor. Crowd: 13,332.
- AAP
