Melbourne Storm 16–18 Newcastle Knights — Semi-Final, 2013 NRL Finals Series
21 Sep 2013 · AAMI Park, Melbourne, VIC · Attendance: 19,649
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
Semi-Final, 2013 NRL finals series: Melbourne Storm 16–18 Newcastle Knights, at AAMI Park, Melbourne, VIC on 21 Sep 2013.
Sourcing caveat: The canonical rugbyleagueproject.org match-summary page for this fixture could not be directly loaded; try-scorer minutes and full confirmation came from an aggregated head-to-head table and a secondary source rather than the primary match page, so treat scorer minutes as indicative rather than certain. No player-of-the-match award or sin-bin/send-off could be confirmed.
Scorers
| Melbourne Storm | Tries: Blair; Bromwich; Waqa Goals: Smith (2/3 conversions) |
| Newcastle Knights | Tries: Hilder; Houston; Uate Goals: Roberts (3/3 conversions) |
Team sheets
| Melbourne Storm | Newcastle Knights | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Billy Slater | Fullback | Darius Boyd | 1 |
| 2 | Sisi Waqa | Wing | Kevin Naiqama | 18 |
| 3 | Will Chambers | Centre | Dane Gagai | 3 |
| 4 | Maurice Blair | Centre | Joey Leilua | 4 |
| 5 | Justin O'Neill | Wing | Akuila Uate | 5 |
| 18 | Gareth Widdop | Five-Eighth | Jarrod Mullen (c) | 6 |
| 7 | Cooper Cronk | Halfback | Tyrone Roberts | 7 |
| 8 | Jesse Bromwich | Prop | David Fa'alogo | 8 |
| 9 | Cameron Smith (c) | Hooker | Danny Buderus | 9 |
| 10 | Bryan Norrie | Prop | Willie Mason | 10 |
| 11 | Kevin Proctor | Second-Row | Robbie Rochow | 11 |
| 12 | Ryan Hoffman | Second-Row | Beau Scott | 12 |
| 13 | Ryan Hinchcliffe | Lock | Jeremy Smith | 13 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 14 | Jason Ryles | Matt Hilder | 14 | |
| 15 | Tohu Harris | Chris Houston | 15 | |
| 16 | Jordan McLean | Neville Costigan | 16 | |
| 17 | Kenny Bromwich | Alex McKinnon | 17 | |
| Craig Bellamy | Coach | Wayne Bennett | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Ben Cummins and Gerard Sutton (two-referee system) |
Match report
Newcastle's 2013 finals campaign was one of the competition's genuine Cinderella stories. Under first-year coach Wayne Bennett, the Knights had scraped into the eight in seventh place, then upset the Bulldogs in week one before travelling to Melbourne as heavy underdogs against the reigning premiers, who had not lost to Newcastle since 2009. Newcastle led for long stretches through disciplined forward play, with a costly Billy Slater fumble under a bomb gifting Matt Hilder his try. Melbourne, missing injured forward Jordan McLean for large portions, mounted a determined comeback through late tries to Sisa Waqa and Jesse Bromwich but ultimately fell two points short. The 18-16 win sent Newcastle into a preliminary final for the first time since their 2001 premiership year, ending Melbourne's season and widely described afterwards as one of the finals series' biggest boilovers.