Double trouble: Dragons twin to leave club in Flanagan clean out

Melbourne’s dominance across 27 rounds of the NRL regular season will be acknowledged when they receive the time-honoured JJ Giltinan Shield – before their captain’s run.

Storm officials said their first preference would have been to receive the precious cargo after they secured first place with victory over the Dolphins last Saturday week at AAMI Park.

But rather than wait until after full-time at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday night, where there will only be a small sprinkling of Melbourne supporters, the Storm asked the NRL to hold a low-key ceremony with players and staff before training. NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo will fly south for the presentation.

The Panthers received the JJ Giltinan Shield at BlueBet Stadium last year in front of thousands of fans, and the year before that asked the NRL if they could receive the silverware in the penultimate round because their final game was in Townsville.

“They usually give you the shield on the night you win the minor premiership, but I guess the NRL never envisaged the Panthers losing to the Raiders earlier that day,” Storm co-owner and chairman Matt Tripp said.

“Nobody anticipated us winning the minor premiership with three rounds to go.

“It would have been great to celebrate with our fans and members that night, but it didn’t work out that way.

“We are still delighted Andrew is making the trip down on Wednesday to acknowledge what has been a great season for us thus far. We didn’t want to be waiting around after the game Thursday night in Brisbane.

“It’s still nice we get to celebrate something special, and it’s probably a good time without the distraction of a game.”

The Storm played in Townsville last weekend, and play Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday night.

Some of the greatest scenes in the game have featured players carrying the shield around the ground after grand final wins. The JJ Giltinan Shield was awarded to minor premiers from 1997.

The Storm receive $200,000 for finishing first past the post, with Tripp not prepared to buy into the ongoing debate about whether that prizemoney should be higher. The club has now finished first six times, including 2011, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2024.

Tripp preferred a discussion about who earned what during the NRL finals. As it stands, the NRL collects all gate takings through September, with a club like Melbourne limited to what they can earn for all their hard work through the year. A full house at AAMI Park generates north of $500,000 for the Storm.

Melbourne will host a qualifying final, most likely on Saturday week, and should they win, host a preliminary final on the Friday night, which is a public holiday in the Victorian capital because of the AFL grand final the following day.

Storm turn fixture woes into minor premiership win

Roy Ward

When Melbourne Storm looked over their draw for the 2024 season, a tilt at the NRL minor premiership would have been the furthest from their thoughts.

The club wasn’t happy to have seven home games packed into the first 11 rounds and just one home clash in the last five weeks of the season.

The worst of that stint came in the final two rounds of season with a short turnaround into an away game in Townsville followed by a final-round clash with Brisbane Broncos in Brisbane on Friday night.

Yet somehow the Storm have overcome those hurdles and a injury disruptions to Cameron Munster (13 games) and Xavier Coates (12 games) to claim their sixth JJ Giltinan Shield as minor premiers.

This latest honour comes as the Storm move to 14 consecutive seasons in the finals. Twelve of them have ended with finishes in the top four.

The lack of a late-season home game meant the Storm opted to have the trophy presented inside an empty AAMI Park on Wednesday with just the players, club staff, some media and a coffee cart brought in for the occasion as NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo handed over the shield.

Storm chief executive Justin Rodski couldn’t help but add a “good question” when Abdo was asked if the league’s planners erred by not making sure Melbourne had a home game in the last two rounds.

“If only the draw was that simple,” Abdo said.

Rodski added that this honour was made more special by the injury struggles with only seven players playing 20 games or more going into the last round, only three of them (Tyran Wishart, Josh King and Trent Loiero) to have played all games up to now.

“It adds so much more to the minor premiership to have had the injuries we had, to have got through the origin period and the depth we have shown,” Rodski said.

The Storm revere the history behind the shield, which used to be awarded to the grand final winners in earlier eras. But, with winning the premiership still their top goal, this trophy often gets quickly forgotten.

“There has been some setbacks along the way,” coach Craig Bellamy said.

“We were very aware early in the season of our draw and how tough it was going to be at the end.

“Four of our last five games were going to be away, two of them [close together] in the Townsville game and the Broncos game but having said that, we just concentrated on each week and go from there.”

Bellamy wants to play as many of his first-choice side as he can against the Broncos but Ryan Papenhuyzen won’t be risked after battling bone bruising while Christian Welch didn’t train on Wednesday.

Coates trained well according to Bellamy but still has to prove his fitness after sitting out since round 17 with a hamstring issue.

“I’m real proud of what the boys have done this year, but there’s another comp starting next week,” Bellamy said.

Soward and Saints to part ways

Dan Walsh

The Dragons have told NRLW coach and former NSW Origin star Jamie Soward he won’t be retained beyond the 2024 season.

Soward was informed on Monday of the club’s decision by chief executive Ryan Webb, and it is unclear at this stage if he will see out the remainder of the season.

He declined to comment when contacted by this masthead but indicated he is keen to continue coaching next season and wished a Dragons playing group stacked with young talent nothing but the best.

Soward put his hand up to take over as NSW women’s State of Origin coach in June after incumbent Kylie Hilder oversaw a third loss in four years, raising the prospect of a shake-up pending a NSWRL board review.

“I want to interview if there’s a chance,” Soward, who worked as a NSW assistant in 2022, told AAP at the time. “I’d love to coach the Sky Blues.”

Soward, who won a premiership with St George Illawarra in 2010, has coached the Dragons NRLW team since 2021, but the team has struggled since the competition expanded to 10 teams in 2023.

Under Soward’s leadership, the team played in the 2021 grand final, where they lost 4-16 to the Roosters, and reached the semi-finals in 2022 where they lost 30-6 to the Knights.

The Dragons missed the finals series in 2023, when they finished seventh on the ladder after just three wins for the season.

In 2024, the club have posted just two wins so far with three weeks left of the regular season, but they thrashed beat the Eels 42-14 last weekend and stunned two-time premiers Newcastle with a 18-10 victory earlier in the season.

Soward has overseen a significant roster rebuild in recent seasons as the Dragons impressive young talent – including 10 Illawarra Steelers players in this year’s NSW under 19s side – began to emerge.

Whitehead hit with lengthy ban for season-ending tackle on Smith

Billie Eder

Canberra’s Elliott Whitehead has been hit with a lengthy ban and up to $5000 in fines for three separate incidents on Sunday, including a hip-drop tackle on Sydney Roosters’ hooker Brandon Smith that is feared to have ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

Whitehead, who is off to Super League next year, has been slapped with a minimum three-game suspension for the dangerous contact, along with a minimum $3600 in fines for tripping James Tedesco and contrary conduct on Angus Crichton.

The Raiders veteran was sent to the sin bin on two separate occasions for the incidents involving Smith and Crichton in the Raiders’ 14-12 victory over the Roosters.

The charge means Whitehead will almost certainly miss his final game as a Raider after nine seasons at the club, with the 34-year-old off to England next year, unless he can get the ruling overturned at the NRL judiciary.

Whitehead’s suspension is compounded by a season-ending fractured cheekbone and broken nose for Raiders fullback Jordan Rapana, who suffered the injury during a collision with Tedesco in the early minutes of the match. Rapana is also off to play in England next year.

Whitehead told reporters he tried to apologise for the injury to Smith after the match, but Roosters coach Trent Robinson “had a go at me”.

“I didn’t mean to do [that to] Brandon. I know he’s come up with a bad injury and stuff, and I’m sorry to him for that,” Whitehead said. “I went over to ask about Brandon and Trent Robinson’s had a go at me. I went to apologise, and he’s turned on me, so the way he’s done that I thought [he] was out of order.”

Robinson confirmed he and Whitehead exchanged words after the match, and claimed the hip-drop tackle was common in Whitehead’s game.

“He came up and just wanted to ask how Brandon was, and I just said it was too many times. The hip-drops been pretty common in his game for a long time, and I just said it’s too many times. It’s cost us a player,” Robinson said.

“That was it. He said it was an accident, and I just said, ‘Look you’ve done it too many times’. That was it.

Loading

“He’s done a lot in his career. It’s been pretty common. If you go and have a look – I like Elliott, watched him since he was in Bradford and Catalans – but it’s been pretty common and that was what I said. I know he’s opened it up here [press conference] which is why we’re talking about it, and I wouldn’t usually want to talk to you guys [reporters] about it, but he opened it up, and it’s been really common in his game his whole career.”

NRL is Live and Free on Channel 9 & 9Now

Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.