Luke Buttigieg at Olympic Park
The Melbourne Storm have beaten St George Illawarra 26-0 in a spiteful clash that saw Jason Ryles sent off and three other players sin-binned at a wet Olympic Park on Monday night.
After a dull start to the match highlighted by Israel Folau's ninth try of the season in the ninth minute, the game exploded in the 23rd minute following a late tackle from Cooper Cronk on Jamie Soward after Matt Cooper had knocked on.
Firstly Billy Slater and Jason Nightingale exchanged blows as the teams went toe-to-toe, before Dallas Johnson and Beau Scott did likewise just when it appeared the stoush was dying down.
When the dust finally settled, referee Gavin Badger sent Soward to the sin bin for his reaction to Cronk's tackle, before also giving Slater and Adam Blair 10 minutes to cool their heels as Johnson, Nightingale and Scott all escaped penalty.
But the drama didn't end there with the Dragons suffering an even bigger blow only a couple of minutes later when Badger didn't hesitate in sending Ryles off for stomping and kicking as the Storm prepared to feed a scrum.
Folau had scored early in the game when Cronk's second kick in as many plays saw the Brisbane-bound centre leap high to catch the ball and then wrestle it away from the grip of Nightingale and Ben Hornby to plant the ball down one-handed.
Having limited the damage to only an unconverted try inside the opening 30 minutes, the visitors looked out on their feet following the two incidents as they absorbed plenty of pressure on their line, thanks in no small part to Melbourne's poor last-tackle options.
But moments before the break Cam Smith charged at the defensive line and held the ball up just long enough for Jeff Lima to steam onto the ball, spin out of Cooper's attempted tackle and score his first try of the season for 10-0 at half-time.
After Cam Smith had a try disallowed for obstruction, the penalties continued to flow after the break, with the Dragons receiving their share but failing to capitalise, and the Storm finally broke them with three tries in nine minutes.
The first came in the 57th minute when Jeremy Smith ran onto a superb short ball from Cronk to score, before not endearing himself to his future team-mates by throwing the ball at the head of Justin Poore because Poore had unnecessarily fallen on him.
Two minutes later and Folau's offload, despite being tackled by three opponents, put Jeremy Smith into a gap and he raced 40m before finding Turner in support. Veteran Matt Geyer grabbed the fifth try with 12 minutes to play.
With minutes remaining Josh Morris almost scored after a good run from Soward but four Storm players were on the spot to hold him up and ensure that the Dragons didn't trouble the scorers.
Melbourne Storm 26
Tries: Folau, Lima, J Smith, Turner, Geyer
Conversion: C Smith 3
St George Illawarra Dragons 0
Sportal's NRL Player of the Year:
3 - Israel Folau (Storm)
2 - Jeremy Smith (Storm)
1 - Greg Inglis (Storm)