The Bulldogs attack again, but Stephen Crichton’s last-tackle kick is plucked from the air nicely by Storm debutant Hayden Watson. Crichton tackles the 19-year-old, then drags him towards the Storm goal-line and gives him an extra shove. Sua Fa’alogo isn’t thrilled with that and gives Crichton a shove, and the referee blows a penalty against Crichton for the second effort.
The Storm go upfield with the penalty, and end their set with a sharp kick into the in-goal from Watson, and the Melbourne defence traps Jacob Kiraz in-goal to force a dropout.
It looks like Melbourne are going to score on the next set when Fa’alogo puts Nick Meaney through a gap, but when Meaney draws the final defender and whips an offload backwards it goes straight to Matt Burton.
The end-to-end stuff continues, and a good Bulldogs set ends with Crichton sending up a bomb. Two wingers go up for it, the ball spills free to Burton, and he offloads to Josh Curran who scores in the left corner. There’s a suggestion in replays that Dogs winger Jethro Rinakama may have knocked on when competing for the bomb, but the bunker clears it and the visitors have the lead.
Crichton caps a wild few minutes with a perfect conversion from the sideline.
Bulldogs 26, Storm 22 with 17 minutes left