Looking Back: Underdog Tigers Gatecrash Storm and Slater's Party

On a warm blustery night in Melbourne, the Wests Tigers overcame huge odds to grind out an amazing win against the Melbourne Storm at AAMI Park, gatecrashing the party with a stunning 10-8 win.

Not many had faith in the Wests Tigers to come down to Melbourne and pull off an unlikely underdog victory, as emotions ran high for Billy Slater's milestone 300th game.

SI's predictions model were convinced otherwise that the game was closer than it appeared:

Bookies Implied Probability: $1.14 Melbourne, $6.50 Wests.
  SI's Fair Odds: $1.33 Melbourne, $3.99 Wests.

Stats Insider data placed Storm as 74.9% favourites, compared to the Tigers 25.1% likelihood of a win.

For the first time in 18 months the Storm were kept scoreless in an opening half of play, and it was the bedrock that the Tigers would build their victory upon. Dominant defensive efforts compiled a great first half, and the Tigers would force the Storm into an incredible 17 errors, the most posted by Melbourne since 2012.

Using the same defence-focused, grind it out style that had gotten the better of the Sydney Roosters in week one, the Tigers held the Storm scoreless for the opening 64 minutes of the game. Ben Matulino's sin binning opened the door for the Storm, who finally crossed the try-line with just over 15 minutes to go and would eventually have an 8-6 lead before Matulino returned with 6 minutes remaining. The Storm had jumped to 80 percent favouritism following Matulino's sin binning and Suliasi Vunivalu's try.

However it would be the front rower Matulino who would lead the Tigers improbable comeback, crashing the Storm's goal-line defence before smartly offloading to halfback Luke Brooks who went over for the try and helping clinch an extraordinary road win for Wests.

Their win was all the more unlikely considering Josh Addo-Carr's potential try was ruled out for a forward pass in the lead up, which opened the door for the Tigers to steal and seal an incredible underdog victory.