St George Illawarra coach Nathan Brown said the sensational send-off of his prop Jason Ryles ''ruined'' a good game and it appeared that way on the scoreboard as Melbourne romped to a 26-0 victory in their NRL clash last night.

As well as Ryles, three other players were sin-binned after a wild melee.

Before the send-off in the 25th minute, the Storm was up 4-0. But against 12 men, the home team lifted that score to 10-0 by half-time and its try tally to five by the final whistle.

Ryles was marched by referee Gavin Badger 25 minutes into the match when he lashed out and kicked the legs of opposing forward Jeff Lima as the teams packed a scrum.

It may have been retaliation as replays showed Lima appeared to tread on Ryles.

''The referee ruined what was going to be a good, tough game of football,'' Brown said.

''You can probably call it a hasty decision. I don't think anyone in the rugby league world thought that warranted a send-off, that was just two frontrowers having a bit of pitter-patter.''

The incident could have escaped Badger's attention if it hadn't come just two minutes after the all-in brawl, which stopped the match for several minutes.

Badger sent Storm fullback Billy Slater to the sin-bin, along with his teammate Adam Blair and Dragons five-eighth Jamie Soward for their contributions and warned the captains that a send-off was the next step. The fighting started after a tackle by Cooper Cronk on Soward, who the Storm players verbally targeted leading up to the match.

They believed Soward showed their team a lack of respect by his exuberant celebrations when the Dragons beat the Storm, who were missing their nine Origin players, back in round 10.

Brown said he hoped the match review committee would agree that Ryles had been penalised enough.

''I think he's served his penalty,'' he said.

Storm coach Craig Bellamy also said he would be disappointed if any further action was taken against any of the players, including the Dragons.

He also praised the visitors for their efforts.

''They played real strong, they were a credit to their club to play like that with only 12 men,'' he said.

The ill feeling continued in the second half. Storm forward Jeremy Smith touched down in the 57th minute and then took offence to a late hit by Dragons prop Justin Poore.

Smith threw the ball at his opponent and Badger moved in to again try to keep a lid on things.

Storm centre Israel Folau opened the scoring with a spectacular try in the eighth minute. He out-leapt Jason Nightingale and as he crashed back down, he managed to stretch out his right arm and score. AAP