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There is just over a week to go before the NRL grand final – but before that, this weekend we will know the identities of the two teams that will take part in the big dance.
Fresh off a week’s break the Canberra Raiders and Sydney Roosters will start the prohibitive favourites to win their respective preliminary finals on Friday and Saturday, but both will face teams that defeated them during the regular season.
While the Raiders and Roosters rested the South Sydney Rabbitohs put an end to the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles’ season with a 34-26 win at ANZ Stadium, while the Melbourne Storm shut the Parramatta Eels out 32-0 in the other semi-final at AAMI Park.
On Friday night, the Raiders will tackle the Rabbitohs – who won their only regular season encounter by 16-12 on Election Night in May – at a sold-out GIO Stadium, while on Saturday night it’s the grand final rematch between the Roosters and the Storm at the SCG.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Here is your preview to the two preliminary finals.
Raiders vs Rabbitohs
This season: Rabbitohs won 16-12 at GIO Stadium in Round 10.
Last meeting in a finals match: Rabbitohs won 38-16 at ANZ Stadium, first semi-final, 2012.
For the Canberra Raiders this is arguably their biggest match since the 1994 premiership, with the club having gone through a quarter of a century of heartbreak and near-misses since.
After finishing third at the end of the season – their second top-four finish in four years – the Raiders travelled south to Melbourne and replicated its win over the Melbourne Storm at AAMI Park to advance straight to a home preliminary final.
There they will face the South Sydney Rabbitohs, who rebounded from their heavy qualifying final loss to the Sydney Roosters to defeat the Sea Eagles 34-26 and secure a preliminary final berth for the fifth time in the past eight years.
Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett has ordered his players to make their own way to the nation’s capital, where they will spend the entire Thursday acclimatising to the conditions ahead of what is expected to be an unforgiving sold-out crowd at GIO Stadium.
It was an initiative he came up with earlier this year, and it proved successful when the Bunnies won 16-12 back in Round 10.
But Ricky Stuart’s Raiders will be refreshed on Friday night after having the week off – thanks to its heroics in Melbourne nearly a fortnight ago.
It will be the first time Bennett and Stuart go head-to-head in a finals match since the 2002 preliminary final, when rookie coach Stuart guided his Roosters to a 16-12 win over Bennett’s Broncos on the same day the AFL’s Brisbane Lions won their second consecutive flag.
It will also be the first time the Rabbitohs and Raiders face each other in September since 2012, when the Bunnies won convincingly 38-16 on their way to the preliminary final.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
This time it will be the Green Machine who start favourites as they attempt to put an end to a quarter of a century of heartbreak which followed their most recent premiership in 1994.
For the winner: A berth in the grand final – for either side their first since winning their most recent premierships in 1994 in the case of the Raiders or 2014 for the Rabbitohs.
For the loser: Season over.
Prediction: Raiders by eight points.
Roosters vs Storm
This season: Roosters won 21-20 at AAMI Park in Round 6; Storm won 14-12 at the Adelaide Oval in Round 15.
Last meeting in a finals match: Roosters won 21-6 at ANZ Stadium, grand final, 2018.
The grand final rematch comes a week earlier than anticipated when the Sydney Roosters and Melbourne Storm lock horns in the second preliminary final at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday night.
The Storm and Roosters may have finished as the two best-performed teams during the regular season, but after the Roosters won their qualifying final and the Storm lost theirs it means they will instead be playing for a place in the decider rather than for the actual premiership.
This is just one of the flaws of the current NRL finals system, in which teams one and two could face each other in a preliminary final – under the old McIntyre system that was scrapped in February 2012 this was not possible.
The Roosters will go into the match off a week’s rest following their qualifying final win over the Rabbitohs, but will be without forward Jared Waerea-Hargreaves who copped a one-game ban from the tribunal for tripping his opponent.
His absence aside the Chooks will otherwise field another strong team as they attempt to force their way into another grand final, which would see them start favourites to become the first repeat premiers in a unified competition since the Brisbane Broncos in 1992-93.
Having announced that he would retire at the end of this season, halfback Cooper Cronk will be out to continue his premiership push while at the same time ending his former club’s season a game short of four straight grand finals.
Standing in their way are the Melbourne Storm, who will be gracing the Sydney Cricket Ground for the first time in their 22-year history.
After an uncharacteristically lacklustre performance in their qualifying final loss to the Canberra Raiders at home, Craig Bellamy’s side came out all guns firing in their semi-final against the Parramatta Eels – winning by 32-0 and not giving their opponents a look-in.
And while it will be the first time the team plays at the iconic ground, for their captain Cameron Smith it will be his second match at the ground after he played in the Centenary Test in 2008.
The Storm have prepared for this match by emulating the SCG’s rugby league dimensions on Olympic Park Oval – the former site of the old Olympic Park Stadium which is now used by AFL club Collingwood as a training field.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
League experts are already writing off the Storm’s chances – not only is it their first game at the SCG, they will also be facing a Roosters side which has turned their temporary home into a fortress by winning their last nine games and outscoring their opponents by 336-72.
This came after the Roosters endured two decades without a win at the ground, their previous win prior to this season coming against the Parramatta Eels in 1999.
The key to the Storm’s chances of winning – and thus qualifying for a fourth straight grand final which would come a decade after they achieved the same feat between 2006-09 – is shutting down Roosters centre Latrell Mitchell, who has made a habit of outscoring the opposition in several matches at the SCG this year.
Storm centre Curtis Scott is set to be given the unenviable task of marking the former NSW centre, having been recalled into the side last week at the expense of Will Chambers.
For the winner: The Roosters will get the chance to become the first repeat premiers in over a quarter of a century – for the Storm a fourth consecutive grand final and a shot at a fourth premiership to go with the titles they won in 1999, 2012 and 2017.
For the loser: Season over, a long summer to ponder what could have been and – for Cooper Cronk – retirement.
Prediction: Roosters by ten points.
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