'How the hell did he score that?': NRL world in awe of Coates's freakish try (2025)

Another entertaining day of football ends with a thrilling contest between two teams that should be there when the whips are cracking in September and maybe even October.

Thanks for sticking with us today, and make sure to come back tomorrow as we cover off the Broncos vs the Dragons, Canberra against the Gold Coast, and the Tigers vs Souths.

And maybe we'll even have the NSW State of Origin team announced at the end of all that.

Bye!

Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon says that's right up there with the best wins he's experienced with the Sharks.

"Both teams can probably play better but in terms of the effort and the standard of game, I thought it was great."

On Ronaldo Mulitalo trying to fight the entire Melbourne team …

"He's just one of those players and they're a good barometer for where your team's energy is at. He just sticks up for his teammates and sometimes he pushes the boundaries. He gets into battle mode and he's hard to control when he gets like that."

Fitzgibbon hails Addin Fonua-Blake and the middles for their "hang-on energy", and reserves special praise for Sifa Talakai and Daniel Atkinson for slotting onto the right flank to cover Jesse Ramien and Sam Stonestreet.

Melbourne is 5/5 at home and just 1/5 on the road this season and gone win-loss-win-loss-win-loss in the last six games.

It's a frustrating experience for the Storm, and coach Craig Bellamy is searching for answers.

"We just need to get more consistent with what we do, away and at home," he says.

"We pride ourself on being consistent whether we're playing at home or away, and that's not happening at the moment."

On that effort by Xavier Coates …

"He just keeps surprising you every week. Sometimes you think 'how the hell did he score that?'. He's been unbelievably good for us all year, not only the spectacular stuff, but he's up around 20 carries each game and they're always strong carries."

Ryan Papenhuyzen said he wished he'd played better tonight to put himself in the frame for a NSW Blues jersey, but we'll find out more tomorrow … probably.

The NSW team has traditionally been named on the Sunday evening, with the Queensland team named on Monday.

This year, we may not know the Blues side until Monday morning, with NSWRL saying: "The last game [Sunday] will determine whether the team is named late Sunday night after the match or Monday morning."

Tomorrow's 6:15pm game is Wests Tigers vs South Sydney Rabbitohs.

Latrell Mitchell, Jarome Luai, Keaon Koloamatangi and Apisai Koroisau are all in the reckoning for Blues call-ups.

Tigers prop Terrell May should be in the frame too, but he's apparently no longer in the mix.

They love being back at Shark Park.

Ryan Papenhuyzen went on report in the last play of the game as Ronaldo Mulitalo clearly got under the skin of the Storm.

He clocked Sua Fa'alogo high in his first play of the game and it just went on from there, constantly getting up in the grill of the Storm players, but also playing some excellent footy, with a try, a try assist and a line break assist

"Two competitive sides," Papenhuyzen tells ABC Sport of the contest that threatened to boil over a few times.

Papenhuyzen says they were expecting wet conditions tonight and even though they didn't eventuate, they should have played more through the middle, where Stefano Utoikamanu, Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Josh King managed to get on top of the formidable Cronulla pack.

"We wanted to play footy. Last week we talked about not having expectations, we probably had a bit too many going into this game," he says.

The Storm's last play was a desperate bomb towards Xavier Coates but Ronaldo Mulitalo wins the last duel and the Sharks hang on for a thrilling 31-26 win over Melbourne.

Ryan Papenhuyzen comes over the top with an ugly shot, albeit not particularly violent. He's on report. Paps and Mulitalo shake hands and everybody's mates. Rugby league players really are built different.

Sifa Talakai is on report for hitting Papenuyzen high.

Hughes hits the penalty into the 40m line in Sharks territory.

There'll be one play.

But they've fumbled in their desperation to attack.

And once again Ronaldo Mulitalo gets up in their face to antagonise, just as he did when Coates knocked on.

Interestingly, Cameron Munster had a call just like this reversed in the Storm's win over Penrith a couple of weeks ago.

The grubber from Braydon Trindall is straight at Jahrome Hughes, who manages to get in front of it and regather the fumble.

The Storm try to immediately spin it left and Ryan Papenhuyzen hits Xavier Coates with a cut-out pass, but it's just a little too high and hard.

"It's one that you'd expect him to take," Dene Halatau says on ABC Sport.

The Storm weather two sets from Cronulla and then, as they're making good metres, Shawn Blore attempts to get an arm free in a tackle by Nicho Hynes and Sifa Talakai, and knocks on.

That was never going to come off. Terrible, low-percentage play.

Melbourne's last tackle is woeful and straight to the Sharks.

Billy Burns takes off upfield and the ball was knocked out in the tackle. It went back, but as the Storm player was just in a tackling motion, I think that's supposed to be called a knock-on.

Harry Grant's grubber puts the Sharks under the pump, even though Will Kennedy manages to get out of the in-goal.

And Ronaldo Mulitalo's knocked on. Plus, he convinced Nicho Hynes to challenge for a high tackle and it's lost.

Xavier Coates adds another miraculous effort to his try-scoring record, leaping high and all the way over Daniel Atkinson, marking cleanly above his head and grounding the ball after a mammoth fall back to earth.

That is a classic speccy.

What a freak.

Another missed conversion by Papenhuyzen, so the deficit remains five points.

Hynes kicks for an 11-point lead? Why?

And he misses. And the Storm regather the short 20m dropout. And Stefano Utoikamanu flies up to halfway on the first tackle.

Maybe the rugby league gods punishing Cronulla for a cowardly call.

Eli Katoa tells his teammate to break away and rips the ball out of the attacker's hand, but the "held" call had just come.

I don't really understand why a player gets to reset if they don't hear the held call and throw a late offload, but a player who doesn't hear the call and rips the ball free is penalised.

Sifa Talakai knocks on 5 metres away from the tryline. And the Storm go the other way, with Stefano Utoikamanu knocking on as Munster fires a spiral pass at him.

Both passes were just a little too hard. Still catchable, but not ideal for a rampaging big fella.

The bombs keep coming the way of Sua Fa'alogo and this time Ronaldo Mulitalo comes down with it, offloading to Billy Burns who's reined in by the pure power of Cameron Munster right on the tryline.

But Nick Meaney knocks on in the play the ball.

The Sharks attack from 10 metres out.