Craig Bellamy will so far take an unchanged Melbourne Storm side from Tuesday’s team announcement to take on the Brisbane Broncos at AAMI Park.
Marion Seve, Aaron Pene and Chris Lewis drop away, while Jonah Pezet and Jack Howarth remain on an extended interchange bench to round out the 19-man squad.
Brisbane Broncos have knocked off the unbeaten North Queensland Cowboys at a soggy Lang Park to kickstart their push for the top eight.
The Broncos scored three tries in the first 20 minutes, but the Cowboys hit back in one of the best first halves of the season so far.
The home side went on with the job in the second half to win 38-12, despite an amazing try-saving tackle by Tom Dearden, who sprinted across the ground to catch the Broncos’ Selwyn Cobbo on a 90m intercept and drag him into touch centimetres short of the tryline.
At that point the visitors were only down 20-12 with half an hour left in the game, but two minutes later, fullback Scott Drinkwater dropped the ball coming off their line (one of his five errors in the match) and gave possession straight back to the Broncos.
A few seconds after that, Jake Granville switched off at marker and Brisbane sub Tyson Smoothy coasted 3 metres from dummy half for the easiest try of the night.
It was the first of three second-half tries for the Broncos as they ran up the score on their error-riddled northern cousins, and Cowboys coach Todd Payten said “the most disappointing part of the game” was watching his side fail to get on Dearden’s level.
