ROUND-UP
By CALLUM WALKER and TOM SMITH
IF you’ve ever seen a halfback performance as dominant as the one shown by Cameron Munster last Thursday night, then the world needs to know about it.
From start to finish, the blonde-haired maverick controlled proceedings for Melbourne Storm, with his unbelievable skill and intelligence causing Manly problems all night.
Melbourne hit first when Munster danced his way through soft Manly defence from a scrum, with Nick Meaney converting before Brandon Smith set up a lovely inside move with the gleeful Chris Lewis dotting down.
Jorge Taufua did manage to cross three minutes before half-time to give the Sea Eagles hope for the second half, but that was as good as it got for Manly.
The Storm turned the screw following the resumption, with Xavier Coates climbing highest to a pinpoint Munster kick.
Meaney’s conversion made it 18-4, and that became 24-4 just shy of the hour mark when Munster ripped the ball off Taufua to run it in from 20 metres out.
Kenny Bromwich rubbed salt into the wounds on 65 minutes after storming onto a suspicious-looking Meaney pass.
Though Christian Tuipulotu finished acrobatically just two minutes later to reduce the deficit to 20, Manly had no chance of getting back into the game as the Storm underlined their title credentials.
THE scoreline at BlueBet Stadium on Friday night suggests that it was an easy ride for premiers Penrith, but the Cowboys were stubborn until the very end.