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Storm, Broncos, Bulldogs and Roosters are this year's NRL top four

14th June, 2015
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Will Bennett be at the Broncos in 2019? (AAP Image/Dan Peled)
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14th June, 2015
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North, south, east and west of the rugby league geographical spectrum will all feature in my top four for the 2015 season.

It is now halfway through the season, so let us ask the question, why do two teams currently in the top four miss out?

Why do the other two teams deserve a place? This article will take into account injury, form, Origin and other factors to determine the top four.

Let us start with the teams that will miss out, most notably the Cowboys, who I think just miss the top four this year.

Reason being their reliance heavily on origin stars Michael Morgan, Johnathan Thurston, James Tamou and Matt Scott who provide both their forward drive and their attacking flare.

Origin will hit them hard and any injury to the above mentioned players will spell disaster. Also to be taken into consideration is that the Cowboys lost their first four games of the season and have had a few narrow wins, against Melbourne, Parramatta and the Wests Tigers.

They could easily lose a few close games this season and a losing streak is not far away.

The Dragons. They are solid team, but they are not solid enough to make the top four. They might just run out puff.

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Their spine is solid, with Gareth Widdop, Benji Marshall and Josh Dugan all in good form, but where they really fall down is the lack of any star forward outside of Trent Merrin. Their outside backs apart from Dugan still have a lot to be desired.

The Dragons will continue to beat teams this season but they don’t quite have the firepower to match the top four.

For the Roosters, I think the amount of representative players in the team says it all. To put into that, James Maloney and Daniel Tupou are form players who can’t even get a gig in the NSW team. This is of no concern to Roosters fans.

Much rests of the form of Jared Warea Hardgreaves, if he can be fit, the Roosters are title contenders.The Roosters have been there and done it in 2013 and went within a whisper last year, they are hard to overlook. I think 2015 will be a year that Roosters fans will have plenty to crow about.

The south end of town now, Melbourne. Three words: Cronk, Slater, Smith.

The ‘Big Three’ sum up Melbourne’s season. If Billy Slater recovers from his shoulder injury and Cooper Cronk comes back injury free they will be a force to be reckoned with. Alongside this they have Cameron Smith who is in sensational form, even for the ever performing Australian captain.

Also Craig Bellamy has a knack of turning good players into superstars and the likes of Will Chambers and Ryan Hinchliffe are benefiting from this. While they may struggle after Origin when their stars are out I think that the storm have done enough to scrape into the top four, but only just. Their season depends totally on the injury status of Cronk and Slater,if those two are fit and they breeze into the top four, without them they may be replaced by the Rabbits.

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Canterbury are the dark horse the make the four, especially seeing an injury to James Graham will have their inspirational leader sidelined for a few weeks.

Yet the recent form of Josh Reynolds and Moses Mybye is strong and sees Des Hasler having a nice problem to decide his starting halves. The Morris boys will return strong from Origin and the addition of Brett to the team will do wonders.

Lastly to Brisbane. Sitting on top of the ladder, with in-form stars Tony Milford, Jack Reed and Ben Hunt and the experience of Corey Parker and Justin Hodges, the Broncos have ability all over the park.

Throw in coach Wayne Bennet and it is no wonder that they sit atop of the ladder at the halfway mark of the season. Bennett has been in this position before and knows what it takes to muster wins together at the end of the season.

Darius Boyd is only going to get stronger as he continues from his return from injury and their mix of experience and youth will put them in good stead come September.

Here we see how form, experience, youth and Origin will all play a pivotal role in deciding the top four. As history shows us, no team from outside it has ever won a premiership.

The race is on…

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