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Jack Howarth appears to ground the ball over the line.Source: Supplied<\/p>\n
Having defended Xavier Coates in the air with great success, the Storm winger finally got his hands on the ball and batted it back to Howarth, who was immediately met by four Panthers as he tried to score.<\/p>\n
The referee sent it up as a no try, but everyone at the ground and watching at home thought he got it down after seeing a couple of replays.<\/p>\n
Everyone except Bunker official Grant Atkins, who supported the live decision, with the NRL then showing new angles to select journalists at the ground after the match. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the moment I was pretty convinced (that I got it down),\u201d Howarth told the NewsWire.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut looking back, I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s hard because some angles look like it\u2019s down, but some don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a big call and unfortunately we didn\u2019t get it our way. That\u2019s how things go. Hopefully, we don\u2019t have to rely on something like that and we can execute our game on Sunday and have a few more points between us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Storm players have spent all year trying to get over last year\u2019s grand final loss. Picture: NRL PhotosSource: Supplied<\/p>\n
The Storm has been plotting their revenge for the past 12 months, with Howarth revealing that pump-up videos have been used to fire them up this season. <\/p>\n
\u201cLast year really hurt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe revisit that every now and then and it\u2019s hard seeing something that you worked towards for the whole year get taken away from you in 80 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough to watch, but as a team, we were really able to grow from it, and I think that\u2019s helped us get to this position again and hopefully we can take last year\u2019s experiences and execute our moments this year. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like we revisit it every week, but if we have a big game, we have a hype-up video that the club puts together. When we watch it, you can see how much it hurts the boys. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt usually fires us up before a game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howarth has had a horror run of injuries this year. Picture: InstagramSource: Instagram<\/p>\n
As for Howarth, he deserves a big finish to the year after dealing with a fractured eye socket in the pre-season before he dislocated his shoulder, had appendicitis and a groin issue that limited him to just 15 appearances this year. <\/p>\n
The shoulder issue ruled him out of contention for a potential debut in the State of Origin opener, while the bout of appendicitis cruelled any hopes of him playing in the decider. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was really devastated when I ruled myself out of Origin with my shoulder, and then when I had an opportunity, I had my appendix removed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of rattled me, but after that, I knew we had a job to do here at the club and that\u2019s to win a premiership, so I focused my mindset on that.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we\u2019re in this position, it\u2019s an unreal feeling and I\u2019m looking forward to that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pain of last year\u2019s grand final defeat has fuelled the Storm throughout 2025, with strike centre Jack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-184509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}