Friday night’s alright for fighting as ANZ Stadium hosts a top of the table clash between the first placed Storm and the second placed Rabbitohs.
TEAM FORM GUIDE
Rabbitohs
After winning 9 straight games, the Rabbitohs delivered one of their poorest performances of the season against the Wests Tigers and they followed it up with an unconvincing 26-20 win over the last placed Eels.
Storm
The Storm stand one game away from notching up a 9 matchย winning streak of theirย own. After grinding out a win against the Warriors the week before, the Storm absolutely demolished the Raiders 44-10. Cameron Munster put in one of his career best performances for the match.
PREVIEW
Key Players
The Storm have just one weakness in their side and that is the lack of a genuine halfback in the 7 jersey. That’s why Cameron Smith has had even more of an influential role in the side than he usually does. He has taken over the game management role of the side and it’s been more than enough to get the Storm back to the top of the table.
Many teams try and many teams fail but Souths need to find a way to limit his influence on the match.
One way it can be done is for the Rabbitohs to dominate the middle and that’ll be up to the Burgess brothers. The resurgent form of the twins along with far less handling errors has helped Souths to a successful season thus far. They win the forward battle, they’ll win the game.
KEY STAT
The Storm have won 24 out of 29 games against the Rabbitohs in their history.
SQUADS
Rabbitohs: 1 Alex Johnston, 2 Campbell Graham, 3 Hymel Hunt, 4 Dane Gagai, 5 Robert Jennings, 6 Cody Walker, 7 Adam Reynolds, 8 Tom Burgess, 9 Damien Cook, 10 George Burgess, 11 John Sutton, 12 Angus Crichton, 13 Sam Burgess (c)
Interchange: 14 Adam Doueihi, 15 Cameron Murray, 16 Jason Clark, 17 Tevita Tatola
Reserves: 18 Billy Brittain, 19 Kyle Turner, 20 Dean Britt, 21 Braidon Burns
Storm: 1 Billy Slater, 2 Suliasi Vunivalu, 3 Will Chambers, 4 Curtis Scott, 5 Josh Addo-Carr, 6 Cameron Munster, 7 Jahrome Hughes, 8 Jesse Bromwich, 9 Cameron Smith (c), 10 Nelson Asofa-Solomona, 11 Felise Kaufusi, 12 Ryan Hoffman, 13 Dale Finucane
Interchange: 14 Joe Stimson, 15 Tim Glasby, 16 Christian Welch, 17 Kenny Bromwich
Reserves: 18 Justin Olam, 19 Tui Kamikamica, 20 Albert Vete, 21 Cheyse Blair
THE IMPORTANT DETAILS
Date: Friday August 3rd
Venue: ANZ Stadium
Kick-off: 7:55pm
WHO WILL WIN?
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https://nothingbutleague.com/2018/08/01/nrl-predictions-round-21/
