The last time the Melbourne Storm lost a Round 1 game, Jonah Pezet hadn't even born.
On Friday night at AAMI Park, as they stretched that record to 22 years, the kid from Gosford came of age.
In just his eighth NRL game, Pezet did a stellar job filling in for injured star Cameron Munster, providing the pinpoint cross field kick for the game's only try and picking himself up after an early error threatened to shatter his confidence.
With enforcer Nelson Asofa-Solomona also missing, and defending champs Penrith determined to bounce back from their loss to Wigan in the WCC, the Storm faced a monumental task if they were to keep alive a streak that began in 2002.
Enter Pezet. Highly rated but still raw, and still learning.
“I spoke to Mun [Munster], last week, he wasn’t feeling good, so he just told me to prep like I was [playing],” Pezet told NRL.com after the game.
“Walking out today I had the biggest smile on my face, walking out there to a packed AAMI Park, round one… it’s special.
This club is built on effort, and we showed that tonight. We turned up for each other non-stop for 80 minutes… unbelievable.
Jonah Pezet
The night hadn't started well though for the 21-year-old. With the home side advancing up the field, looking to put pressure on Penrith, the ball hit his chest… and bounced off. The young No.20 had dropped a dolly just six minutes in. But he never dropped his head.
“He’s an impressive kid,” coach Craig Bellamy said post-match.
“He’s a confident kid, too. I’m sure he would have been bossing some of them around out there.
Storm v Panthers – Round 1, 2024
"You wouldn’t think so - some young halfbacks, they sort of get bossed around themselves. But Jonah don’t lack confidence.”
The Storm went into the sheds 2-0 up, but uncertain. Kicks weren’t connecting. It wasn’t fluid.
It was Pezet who would set up the decisive moment.
The set after the Panthers were denied a try to Soni Luke to to obstruction in theb lead-up, the ball came to Pezet on last play.
Dylan Edwards had been gobbling up every kick that the Storm threw at him. Not this time. Pezet’s pinpoint cross field kick was won by Xavier Coates, who tapped it back to Reimis Smith. 6-0 Melbourne and Pezet had his first try assist of the season.
Nick Meaney landed a pressure conversion from wide out and that's where the scoring stopped, despite the efforts of Nathan Cleary, Jarome Luai and Taylan May to crack the Storm wall.
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“The efforts, and you know, the guys just backing each other up, I thought was tremendous,” Bellamy said.
“We’re really happy with getting home there. They’re a tough side to beat.
“Round one, just do your job as well as you can, and hopefully we can get a result, which we did.
The perfect dropout?
“We just pride ourselves in what we do in the pre-season and hopefully we can have a good start to a season.
“If you don’t have a good start and you’ve got some Origin players in your team it’s hard to gain momentum at the end of the season before the finals, so we always like to get off to a reasonable start.
“But you know, that’s only the first game now, we’ve still got a few more that we need to play well in.”