BY CURTIS WOODWARD

@woodward_curtis

The Melbourne Storm have come away with a 24-16 win over the Brisbane Broncos at AAMI Park amid what ended up being one of the crazier and longest games of footy many of us will see in a long time.

Several tries were disallowed, numerous players were injured and taken from the field with three players spending time in the sin bin while Reece Walsh escaped sanction for what seemed like a fairly obvious shoulder charge on opponent Justin Olam as he was trying to save a try.

Brisbane lost halfback and captain Adam Reynolds early in the exchange when he smashed into the surface while attempting to ground the ball for a try and didn’t get back up.

Cameron Munster was good for a Storm side desperate for answers after a forgettable Magic Round outing but they weren’t much better than their clunky opponents.

It was a shocker of an evening for the officials on-field and the men in the bunker leaving fans on social media frustrated and perplexed.

Late in the game, a Walsh pass thundered into Olam’s head with teammate Xavier Coates picking it up and racing away to score what would have been one of the tries of the season. Referee Todd Smith pulled up the play immediately calling an Olam error and rubbing out Coates’ 90 metre gallop the other way.

Brisbane’s bench hooker Corey Paix scooted out of dummy half in the 77th minute and scored under the posts but the whole thing looked far too easy and that’s because it was. On closer inspection, footage showed Tom Flegler holding back the Melbourne first marker from stepping out and making the tackle on Paix. Despite reviewing it, Gerard Sutton in the bunker confirmed the try.

The big one for the night was Pat Carrigan’s binning for another supposed “hip drop”.

Coaches, players, media and fans alike were left angry post-match.

“I’m pretty frustrated actually. We came here to play football, that’s what we’ve been doing all year, and I just don’t feel that we got a game of football,” a dejected Broncos coach Kevin Walters said in the press conference.

“I’ll take the loss, we’ve lost before, but this is two good teams going at it and it just didn’t become a game of football. I didn’t feel like we saw a good game of footy. We had three guys sin binned, it’s hard to win when that happens. Were they fair sin binnings?

“I won’t make any comment because my contract’s not big enough to pay the fine.”

It’s not often an opposition coach will agree but that’s what Craig Bellamy did.

“It was a strange sort of game in that there were so many 50-50 things that happened that seemed to have an influence on the game at that moment,” he said.

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“And it just seemed to go forever but we’re happy with the result and the boys can have a couple of days off and put their feet up.”

On Carrigan’s binning for another infamous “hip drop”?

“I think Pat Carrigan was very unlucky to go to the sin bin so I thought was a really tough decision but that was sort of the way the game went tonight.”

@woodward_curtis