Round 24: Storm v Raiders preview
The Storm are eyeing redemption after a big loss to the Panthers last week, hosting the Raiders who sit behind them one place on the ladder, and are both equal on 30 premiership points.
Melbourne have struggled with consistency this season, where last week they were defeated by Penrith with a 26-6 score line, but the previous week they put on a masterclass against the Eels to seal a 46-16 victory. With the home-and-away season almost coming to a close, the Storm must start creating some consistent form if they wish to progress through finals.
After missing out last week's clash, Jahrome Hughes and Xavier Coates are returning to the side after suffering respective ankle and hip injuries. The inclusion of Hughes should provide Melbourne an advantage in attack, where in Round 22 he scored his own four-pointer along with three linebreaks and four try assists. Reimis Smith is listed among the reserves as he eyes a return after battling a hip injury, whilst Bronson Garlick joins the bench with Tyran Wishart dropping to the reserves.
Canberra managed to come away with a controversial win and two premiership points last Sunday against the Wests Tigers. However, this game highlighted some of the Raiders poor form, and how they regularly manage to just scrape through, where they only completed four of 12 sets in the opening 20 minutes of this match. They also have an extremely poor for-and-against, sitting at -74, the only team in the top eight to have a negative differential.
Raiders confirmed that Sebastian Kris will likely miss the remaining matches of the regular season after leaving the ground early last round due to suffering a hamstring strain. NSW under 19s star, Ethan Strange, will take his place which marks his NRL debut.
History is not on the Raiders side, with Melbourne having won five of their last ten matches against Canberra. However, the Storm tends to struggle at home against the Raiders, where they have not won a game at AAMI Park since 2018, losing their last four games at this ground.
Who to watch: Cameron Munster has been quiet and hiding in the shadows for a few matches now, and I'm interested to see if we get to see him take a more dominant playmaker role, as we approach the end of the season, with finals being just around the corner. Munster is an integral player to the Melbourne side, where this year he has assisted with twelve tries, made 20 offloads, and scored six of his own four-pointers.
Playing his second game of the year in the fullback position, Jordan Rapana is an experienced player in the Raiders side. This year he has scored nine tries and assisted with five, he has also scored five tries in eight games at AAMI Park and requires two more four-pointers to equal 100 tries for the Canberra Raiders.
Favourites: The Storm are favoured to claim victory at home and further consolidate a top four position on the ladder.
My tip: Melbourne are fresh off an embarrassing loss, and one thing they don't like doing is losing back to back games. Canberra are inconsistent, making many errors and having poor discipline, much do too the Storm at times, however I don't think the Raiders are strong enough to withstand a full strength Melbourne spine returning to AAMI Park for the first time since Round 17. Melbourne by 14.
