Scratchy Storm Breeze Past Raiders

Melbourne has put on the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde performance this afternoon, combining moments of ineptitude with flashes of pure brilliance in accounting for the Raiders 30-14 at Olympic Park.

The premier's opening 33 minutes was some of the most frustrating and mistake-riddled football seen all year by the normally machine-like Melbourne outfit, but the next seven minutes was something to behold. 

The Storm enjoyed the benefit of a stiff breeze at their back in the opening half, but were unable to use it to any great effect for almost the entire half.

A poorly-placed Cameron Smith clearing kick sailed out on the breeze and the Raiders opened the scoring soon after through Joel Monaghan, who crossed in the corner to give the rank outsiders an early 4-nil advantage after 11 minutes.

The Raiders continued to take it right to Melbourne, but a needless penalty set off a horrible chain reaction for the visitors.

Terry Campese was pinged for illegally shielding Israel Folau away from a Cooper Cronk bomb, and the Storm were over in the blink of an eye from the resulting penalty through Anthony Quinn to square the game up at four apiece.

But as so often happens with the Melbourne Storm, when it rains, it pours (pardon the pun).

A piggy back penalty gave the premiers more cheap ball, and Smith made the most of it with a deft grubber for Billy Slater to touch down. But they weren't done yet.

Sika Manu latched onto a Cooper Cronk cross kick to touch down on the stroke of half-time, with Smith's conversion making it a rapid-fire three tries in a space of seven glorious minutes for the premiers to round out the half.

The Raiders started the second half impressively, and the complacent Melbourne appeared to have returned when Slater was trapped in the in-goal to earn the visitors a repeat set, and they made it count with a try to Todd Carney.

Carney added the extras from adjacent to the posts to narrow the gap to 16-10 after 46 minutes.

It proved to be nothing more than an aberration for the premiers, as a combination of bad luck and weak defence conspired to put the visitors back behind the eight-ball. 

The Storm gifted a repeat set on the Canberra line thanks to an accidental Raiders offside, and it was on again.

To Melbourne's credit they didn't even need a single tackle to extend their lead, with Greg Inglis going in for a soft try courtesy of a cleverly worked scrum play.

The Storm were starting to turn it on, and came up with a try of the year candidate minutes later when Slater chipped ahead for himself, and then soccered the ball into the in-goal, with Inglis out-pacing Carney to go over for his second.

Canberra grabbed a consolation to Marshall Chalk in the 73rd minute to wrap up the scoring.