NRL

Manly Sea Eagles v Melbourne Storm: Round 24 Preview

31 Aug 19 0 Comments

Written by BetEasy

Photo by Kelly Defina

Two old rivals go at it in the match of the round at Lottoland when Manly host Melbourne. The Sea Eagles are coming off a spirited win in Canberra, with the 18-14 triumph pushing them into the top four. Melbourne produced an unconvincing 24-8 win against the Titans after a first half riddled with errors and penalties.

Des Hasler’s Sea Eagles have lost Joel Thompson to a broken arm, but Curtis Sironen is back in the second row, recovering from a hamstring injury. Melbourne’s team list is relatively settled as well, as they welcome back Will Chambers to the starting team.

The Sea Eagles snatched a dramatic 11-10 golden point win at the death against Melbourne just a few weeks ago, so revenge will surely be on Melbourne’s mind.

In their past four matches at Lottoland, the winning margin has been 1, 4, 20 and 2 points, with three of those wins by the Storm.

All signs point to another close one, with Manly 8-3 at home this season and Melbourne 10-1 on the road. Little separates the two sides statistically, both ranked in the top five for points scored and conceded.

The Wolf is going to back the underdog home side, Manly, to take a valuable two points and firm up a top four spot in a match that could be decided by a field goal once again.

Wolf Facts

The last three games between the Sea Eagles and the Storm have seen the away team win. The Sea Eagles won by one (11-10) in Melbourne four weeks ago, the Storm won by one (14-13) in Round 18 last season and the Sea Eagles won by 20 (24-4) in Round 11 last season in Melbourne.
The Sea Eagles are offloading 12 times a game which ranks them second compared to only 7.5 for the Storm which ranks them 13th.
The workhorse that is Jake Trbojevic is averaging 42 tackles per game which is 13 more than the Sea Eagles next best in Martin Taupau with 29 per game.