Smith in awe of Johnson’s efforts
Melbourne Storm captain Cameron Smith admitted that Shaun Johnson’s performance was worth the price of admission alone in the Warriors’ 28-14 win yesterday.
It was yet another spectacular performance from the current holder of the Golden Boot and he was inspiration in the victory at Mt Smart Stadium that keeps his team entrenched inside the top eight.
A crowd of 17,278 came out on a chilly Auckland afternoon to watch the game, the highest home crowd of the season and afterwards Smith admitted Johnson was simply sensational.
‘‘They got their money’s worth tonight off his performance, particularly late in the game, it looked like he was playing touch football there,’’ the Queensland and Kangaroos skipper said.
‘‘A couple of his flick passes, he put a pretty good right foot step on me, but he’s a world class player, he’s shown it at the international level and when his forwards do a really good job like they did tonight, to give him some momentum, he can do those things he’s really good at.
‘‘I know he had a starring role for their team, but there weren’t too many bad players in their team.’’
This defeat brings to an end a tumultuous week for Smith. The high profile saga involving Alex McKinnon was followed by the historic Origin win for Queensland.
Smith is yet to speak about the divisive 60 Minutes programme and had no intention of doing so after this game.
‘‘It was great to win on Wednesday night,’’ he said.
‘‘You’ve got to readjust quickly to come back to club football. But yeah, the personal stuff that’s going on at the moment, that will be handled privately.’’
There are no such personal dramas going on at the Warriors though, this was their sixth win in eight games and they’re looking increasingly likely of finishing the season in the top eight for the first time since 2011.
Even the loss of Ryan Hoffman, Konrad Hurrell and Manu Vatuvei to injuries didn’t hamper their prospects in yesterday’s game and their replacements, Raymond Faitala-Mariner, David Fusitu’a and Jonathan Wright all stood up.
‘‘I’d love to consolidate on some combinations, but injuries and other things haven’t allowed that,’’ Warriors coach Andrew McFadden said.
‘‘But we want to be a tough footy side that can handle those sorts of things. David came in and did a great job and so did Jono Wright. You certainly miss someone like Manu’s go forward, but it meant other people had to fill in for that.’’
The Warriors were close to faultless in the first half. In the 11th minute the opening try came, with Fusitu’a bursting through a gap in the Storm defence before passing the ball out wide to winger Tuimoala Lolohea, who ran the final 40m to score.
For the Warriors’ second try, in the 22nd minute, Fusitu’a took a no-look pass from Sam Tomkins and acrobatically diving by the corner post to ground the ball.
Bodene Thompson crashed through for his sixth try of the season to complete the first half domination. Kenny Bromwich scored two Storm tries in the second half, but between them Lolohea registered his second, following some incredible play where Nathan Friend was able to pass the ball between his legs, in the middle of being backflipped.
Later, Johnson produced yet another of those jinking runs embarrass a defence and score to confirm the win.