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The Melbourne Storm were back to their best against Cronulla last week and will put the Newcastle Knights to the sword if Wayne Bennett’s men are not prepared for battle at AAMI Park. Join us for live scores and commentary from 3.00pm AEST.
Having produced several lean home performances by their high standards in recent weeks, Melbourne managed to rediscover their best form last Sunday against the Sharks en route to a 38-6 victory.
Storm stars Billy Slater, Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Gareth Widdop all had outstanding games as Melbourne tore apart a Sharks outfit that had won its previous four matches.
With such form back on the board, Melbourne will once again be heavily favoured to make light work of a Knights side coming off back to back defeats to the Warriors and Dragons.
Newcastle are yet to win a game away from home this season and face a tough ask today against a Melbourne unit seemingly back to its best.
Prediction
The only saving grace for Newcastle today may revolve around the idea that Melbourne’s performance against Cronulla last week was too perfect.
It will be interesting to see if the Storm are able to replicate such form today against Newcastle, given that everything they touched turned to gold against Cronulla.
One of the main reasons why Melbourne have played well over the past fortnight results from the fact that they have scored the first try.
The Storm are the best frontrunners in the competition as evidenced by their supreme winning record when leading at halftime.
When the opposition score the first try however, Melbourne’s clockwork attack falls apart somewhat as evidenced by their losses to the Panthers and Raiders earlier in the year.
With this in mind, the only way for Newcastle to really give themselves a chance of causing the upset would be to score the first try and play from in front.
While easier said than done, an early try may put a spanner in Melbourne’s machine-like play, and this may provide the Knights with the belief necessary to play with the intensity required to cause the upset.
Another fast start from the Storm however and Newcastle’s hopes of securing the two competition points could very well evaporate by halftime today.
Storm by 14.