We probably should have seen this coming. Souths are 0-17 in Melbourne. The Storm are celebrating Craig Bellamy’s 500th game.

Few would have expected the sort of one way traffic that defined the first half at AAMI Park, however. Melbourne went to the sheds 14-0 to the good, but it could have been anything.

The third try, in which Harry Grant raced 60m untouched from dummy half before putting Cameron Munster in, was emblematic of the Rabbitohs’ lacklustre performance.

“Embarrassing for South Sydney, their middle defence decimated,” shouted Andrew Voss on commentary, and it’s hard to disagree.

The numbers made for terrible reading for Jason Demetriou: in the first half, his team had a 50% completion rate and 10 errors, hardly the sort of ball control on which wins against the Storm are built.

There were other moments, too. Lachlan Ilias missed touch from a penalty, but was reprieved by the Melbourne player being unable to bat it back in. Nelson Asofa-Solomona managed two ball steals. Cameron Murray threw the ball straight past Taane Milne into touch.

It was dispiriting stuff from South Sydney, perhaps more so than that scoreboard itself.

“South Sydney look rattled,” said Cooper Cronk on Fox League. “They look like they can’t handle the ability of Melbourne Storm to spread it wide, or the tenacity and power through the middle. Harry Grant is having a field day.”

“It doesn’t matter where on the field, Melbourne Storm look like a threat.”