Storm pile on the points as Papenhuyzen bags four against Bulldogs
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The Storm have piled on a huge score against Canterbury, with fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen nabbing four tries in a 44-0 avalanche on Sunday afternoon.
The Storm were able to absorb some early pressure before Ryan Papenhuyzen scored his first try in the 11th minute, set up by Xavier Coates.
Josh King profited from Harry Grant's grubber taking a friendly deflection and Kenny Bromwich scored the third and final try of the first half when he cut through out wide.
Xavier Coates can't be caught
The floogates really started to open after half time as Papenhuyzen earned his second and third in short order, with Jahrome Hughes streaking away after scooping up a Matt Burton kick to hand the fullback his hat-trick.
Xavier Coates scored and set up long-range tries in the space of two minutes, the first after grabbing a loose Burton pass with open pastures in front of him and the latter coming from a well-worked shift with Felise Kaufusi at the head of a long queue of support runners to claim the four-pointer.
Papenhuyzen embarrassed the defence to claim his fourth with a fine solo effort to make it 44-0 with just over 10 to play in what proved to be the final score.
Match: Storm v Bulldogs
Round 4 -
home Team
Storm
2nd Position
away Team
Bulldogs
14th Position
Venue: AAMI Park, Melbourne
Match snapshot
- Ryan Papenhuyzen moved past Taylan May atop the season try-scoring list with his four tries taking him to six for the year.
- Papenhuyzen seems to enjoy round four: he also scored four tries against the Broncos in round four last year.
- The Storm are turning short goal-kine drop outs into an art form, with Papenhuyzen able to land the ball on a dime and Xavier Coates an aerial specialist, with the team happy to back its goal-line defence if the play fails.
Papenhuyzen hits the Bulldogs for four
- Cameron Munster was placed on report for dangerous contact.
- The Bulldogs entered the match with the fewest points conceded in the NRL, and their best defensive three-game start of the NRL era but finished it with third-most points conceded of any club through four rounds.
- Josh Addo-Carr now hasn't scored in six games, the equal-longest drought of his career.
- Bulldogs playmaker Matt Burton had a tough time of it in the second half, with one wayward kick and one wayward pass each leading to length-of-the-field Storm tries while the Bulldogs had been on the attack.
- Tevita Pangai jnr threw seven offloads in a game for the second time in three weeks after also doing so in round two against the Broncos.
Play of the game
With the score starting to look a little imposing at 22-0, Jahrome Hughes showed incredible reflexes to pick up a Mtt Burton grubber in the 52nd minute and streak into space; he looked like he was going to go all the way but a determined chase from Matt Dufty forced him to hand a pass off to Papenhuyzen to complete the fullback's hat-trick.
Papenhuyzen scores a hat-trick after Hughes selflessness
What they said
"It was really disappointing if you look at the scoreline. Our lack of defence was off the back of our attack at the start of the game. We had a lot of ball early in the first half and needed to come away with points in the first 15 minutes. We didn't take our chances, they did. They've been up for three weeks and got found out today." - Bulldogs coach Trent Barrett.
"I was most impressed [with the defensive effort], I thought we defended really well. That first 25 minutes we hardly had any field position. To go in leading 12-0 was a good result for us. To keep them to zero was an outstanding display especially in defence." - Storm coach Craig Bellamy.
King rides his luck
What's next
The Storm head back out on the road for the first time in three weeks to take on the 12th-placed Raiders in Wagga Wagga.
The Bulldogs need to dust themselves off quickly because they host the first-placed Panthers at CommBank Stadium next Sunday evening.
