I was at the Dally M’s this week and was thrilled to see the exciting young superstar Ben Barba walk away with the biggest award on the night. It was most deserved.
In fact, with all the awards that the Bulldogs pulled in, the pressure is right on them in their game against the Sea Eagles on Friday night. They scooped the pool and the players enjoyed the occasion.
In contrast, it was interesting to see Manly’s Jamie Lyon, Jason King and others leave the event early. You could see just how intense they were.
Their focus is on this game and, as far as I’m concerned, all arrows point towards these two teams meeting again in the grand final. But there will be some strong challenges from below.
Melbourne are just finding their feet again, with all their players coming back to form at just the right time.
And Souths have been dynamic this season.
As an old halfback, I’m particularly looking forward to the Cooper Cronk versus Reynolds battle.
Reynolds has been a bit quiet over the past few weeks and he will certainly be a target for the bigger Melbourne ball runners. Crock will direct those attacks at his smaller opponent.
And as most of the Souths boys will be new to semi-finals football, they will be immediately tested by the experienced Storm stars.
But against that, coach McGuire knows the Melbourne defensive structures intimately and has actually implemented similar structures with his own team. So they will be well equipped to penetrate through weapons such as Inglis and Sutton.
I don’t think there will be a lot of points scored. Semi-finals are generally won on defense.
My bolters for the final series are the Cowboys, who with the likes of Thurston, Tate, Gavin Cooper, Bowen, and Matt Scott, are well armed to make a charge from fifth.
I’m tipping the Raiders to get over the Sharks on the back of their massive forward pack and equally large expected crowd with some 25,000 tickets pre-paid.
This will be a great moment for the Raiders, who struggled for the first three-quarters of the season.
I can’t wait for it all to kick-off on Friday.
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