{"id":540312,"date":"2026-03-14T16:51:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T16:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/540312\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T16:51:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T16:51:48","slug":"nrl-news-2026-melbourne-storms-sua-faalogo-scores-hat-trick-of-tries-in-win-over-st-george-illawarra-dragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/540312\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Melbourne Storm’s Sua Fa’alogo scores hat-trick of tries in win over St George Illawarra Dragons"},"content":{"rendered":"

First came Robbie Ross, then Billy Slater<\/a>, Cameron Munster<\/a>, Ryan Papenhuyzen<\/a> and Sualauvi Fa’alogo.<\/p>\n

In a scintillating performance against the St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> in Wollongong on Saturday afternoon, the latter left no doubt that he is set to continue the Melbourne Storm<\/a>‘s envied production line of phenomenal fullbacks.<\/p>\n

Fa’alogo, 22, scored a hat-trick of tries at WIN Stadium to almost single-handedly propel the Storm to victory over the Dragons.<\/p>\n

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St George Illawarra were leading 20-18 at the hour mark.<\/p>\n

Then, in a jaw-dropping spurt of individual magic, Fa’alogo, best known as “Sua”, ran in tries in the 63rd, 66th and 75th minutes.<\/p>\n

Dally M-winning halfback Jahrome Hughes grabbed his own four-pointer in the 70th minute.<\/p>\n

Fa’alogo’s third try had the Storm sitting pretty with a 40-20 advantage, before centre Moses Leo got in on the fun in the 80th minute as Melbourne tied a bow on a 46-20 triumph.<\/p>\n

\"Sualauvi<\/p>\n

Sualauvi Fa’alogo celebrates one of his three tries.\u00a0NRL Imagery<\/p>\n

All three of Fa’alogo’s tries were pieces of individual brilliance, but particularly the first, so eye-catching was the footwork he produced to embarrass Dragons centre Mathew Feagai on the Storm’s right edge.<\/p>\n

Catching a pass from dummy-half Harry Grant, he beat Feagai all ends up with footwork that surely had Benji Marshall standing to applaud, shuffling on the 10-metre line like a hip-hop dancer and then burning Feagai with a wicked step off his left.<\/p>\n

He left Feagai flat on the deck \u2014 did the Dragon even get a finger to him? \u2014 and then jerked off his right to bamboozle Queensland State of Origin gun Valentine Holmes as he hurtled toward the try line.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2026 NRL season live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The first try he scored was mesmerising,” rugby league great Greg Alexander said on the Fox League broadcast.<\/p>\n

For his second try, Fa’alogo received the ball from Munster on the left edge 25 metres out and cannoned through a gap between Jaydn Su’A and Moses Suli.<\/p>\n

And for his third, he received the ball from Munster on the left edge just inside the 20-metre line, performed a goosestep of sorts, did a 360-degree pirouette, and left defenders clutching at thin air as he rocketed over the try line.<\/p>\n

Fa’alogo also racked up 152 run metres, three line breaks, 10 tackle busts and a try assist.<\/p>\n

Alexander declared the arrival of Melbourne’s newest superstar fullback.<\/p>\n

“Well, the new era has dawned, hasn’t it, for the Melbourne Storm in terms of their No.1s?” Alexander said.<\/p>\n

He also admitted the young gun had left him “speechless”.<\/p>\n

Storm coach Craig Bellamy gave Fa’alogo an enormous rap in his post-game press conference.<\/p>\n

“I’ve got no doubt he could be our fullback for a long time,” Bellamy said.<\/p>\n

“He’s got one of the best teachers in Billy Slater, that does a lot of work with him during the week.<\/p>\n

“… There’s not too many players I’ve seen that can go from not being real quick, or off the mark, to top pace [like Fa’alogo]. He is lightning-quick over a short distance, and that’s hard to handle.<\/p>\n

“… He’s a really exciting player, he’s a great kid to have around, he’s always up and about, and there’s only improvement in him because, as I said, he’s got a great mentor in Billy. You know the attention to detail Billy’s got, so he couldn’t be in better hands.”<\/p>\n

Fa’alogo began his NRL career on a wing but an opportunity at fullback opened up when Papenhuyzen made the bombshell decision to quit the game<\/a> with a year to run on his contract.<\/p>\n

Fa’alogo is contracted to Melbourne until the end of 2028.<\/p>\n

Melbourne’s 46-20 win over St George Illawarra follows a 52-4 thrashing of Parramatta in round one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bellamy’s team will next face the Broncos at AAMI Park on Friday night in a rematch of the 2025 grand final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First came Robbie Ross, then Billy Slater, Cameron Munster, Ryan Papenhuyzen and Sualauvi Fa’alogo. In a scintillating performance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-540312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540312","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=540312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}