THE Wests Tigers claimed a second massive scalp in the space of two weeks and in the process proved to the entire NRL that the Melbourne Storm aren’t the same team without Cooper Cronk.

On a night that was built around the celebration of Billy Slater’s 300th game for the Storm the Tigers were the ultimate party poopers, displaying the same defensive intent they employed against the Roosters and using it as the cornerstone of a second straight 10-8 win to start 2018.

The match was a stalemate until the 38th minute when Tigers centre Esan Marsters converted the first of his three penalty goals and there wasn’t a try scored until Melbourne took advantage of a 12-man Tigers defensive line to cross in the 64th minute.

Round 20

The sin-binning of prop Ben Matulino for a professional foul saw a six-point Tigers advantage become an 8-6 Storm lead and even after he returned with six minutes to play it seemed destined that the score would stay that way.

MATCH CENTRE: Storm v Wests Tigers

But Matulino provided the spark with an offload as he crashed into the Storm’s goal line defence and halfback Luke Brooks took the pass on the first bounce to crash over two minutes from full-time and clinch an extraordinary victory.

Conceding an incredible 18 penalties — including a 9-1 count against them in the second half — the Tigers also elicited 17 errors out of Melbourne, the most they have conceded in a game since 2012.

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As they grow accustomed to life without Cooper Cronk, rejuvenated Tigers five-eighth Benji Marshall says it was a premeditated plan to put the Storm playmakers under pressure, and it worked a treat.

“Without Cooper Cronk they’re a very different team,” Marshall told Fox Sports.

“I know Brodie Croft’s a great young player but they’ve had Cooper steering the ship for a long time so we wanted to try and put them under a little bit of pressure like they do to other teams.

“Obviously an up-and-in defence was a bit of that plan.

“When we felt a bit vulnerable we would come out of the line and I thought we made a few good decisions and it really helped, putting them under the pump and forcing errors was big for us.”

The Storm pride themselves on performing well in milestone matches and former Melbourne half Brett Finch admitted that the pressure applied by the Tigers for the entire 80 minutes forced the Storm into a very uncharacteristic performance.

“The way they lost it was very uncharacteristic, the amount of errors. It’s been a long time since they’ve made 17 errors,” Finch said on Fox League.

“They look like they tried to make the easy play or score the easy try and they just weren’t willing to get into the grind long enough. (Storm coach) Craig Bellamy will be pretty disappointed with that.

“The way they went about it will disappoint them.

“Plenty of errors and plenty of missed tackles. That’s very un-Melbourne Storm like.”

THE RUNDOWN

After the emotion of Slater’s 300-game milestone died down the Wests Tigers picked up where they left off against the Roosters with a dominant defensive effort in the opening exchanges.

For the first time in 18 months the Storm were kept scoreless in the opening 40 minutes as a pair of Esan Marsters penalty goals gave the visitors a four-point buffer at the break.

It wasn’t until the 38th minute that first points were scored as the Tigers restricted the star-studded Storm side and forced them into error, the most noticeable coming at the back involving Slater and winger Suliasi Vunivalu.

At the conclusion of a week that was a seven-day Slater celebration the champion custodian didn’t contest the first two bombs that came his way, the second of which almost led directly to a Wests Tigers try.

In his milestone 300th NRL game for the Storm champion fullback Billy Slater endured a torrid night at the back for Melbourne. Photo: Scott Barbour Source: Getty Images

When the Tigers finally did post points it was on the back of a Slater mistake after Vunivalu got in the way, their miscommunication an alarming lowlight of Melbourne’s first half performance that continued into the second.

Cameron Munster did go close to registering the game’s first try in the 35th minute when he pounced on a loose ball in the Tigers in-goal but a quick review by the bunker confirmed the claim of Tigers fullback Corey Thompson that he had got a hand to it first.

Further Tigers pressure led to a third penalty goal and a 6-0 lead in the 57th minute before the Storm received back-to-back penalties and Matulino’s sin-binning left the Tigers a man down with 16 minutes left to play.

Vunivalu’s lone highlight came in the right-hand corner courtesy of a Slater cutout pass and two Cameron Smith penalty goals saw the home side hit the front for the first time with eight minutes left to play.

The Tigers defence was relentless all night. Photo: Hamish Blair Source: AAP

They would have gone further ahead had a pass in the lead-up to a possible Josh Addo-Carr not been called forward, opening the door for the Tigers to launch an audacious late bid for victory that came to fruition for the second week running.

Wests Tigers 10 (Luke Brooks try, Esan Marsters 3 goals) def. Melbourne Storm 8 (Suliasi Vunivalu try; Cameron Smith 2 goals) at AAMI Park.

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