This year’s NRL finals series kicks off with South Sydney hosting Melbourne.

The two teams met recently, back in round 22 at Melbourne’s home-ground of AAMI Park and it was the home-side victorious 26 – 8.

Souths were without key player-maker John Sutton and attacking full-back Greg Inglis for that match and the score-line, courtesy of two second half tries by Melbourne, didn’t help reflect the closeness of the match.

The win, which added to their 17-10 win in round 6 this year, further enhanced Melbourne’s record of dominance of the Rabbitohs with the Storm now having won 14 of the past 15 clashes between the two sides, the last six in succession.

Last week Souths had the opportunity to secure the minor premiership when taking on the Roosters but found their opponent’s forward pack too hard to contain and lost 24 – 12.

They’ve been good all year have Souths but worryingly, last week they were flat.

If South’s are to break their Melbourne hoodoo, it rest with the South Sydney forward pack. Last week should serve as a good wake-up call for them.

After their second worse loss of the season to Manly in round 25, Melbourne hosted an under-manned Titans outfit last week who were playing to keep their season alive.

Again, the Strom were not at their clinical best and had to go to Golden Point time to secure the win, courtesy of a Cooper Cronk field goal.

The Storm haven’t been firing on all cylinders the past couple of week and you have to wonder whether a tough and long season for star players Billy Slater, Cam Smith and Cooper Cronk – who form the back-bone of the Storm side, is starting to catch up with them.

Add to that equation that Melbourne halves Finch and Widdop are under injury clouds and there’s enough doubt there to justify their quote as outsiders.

Melbourne will rise to the challenge of finals football as they always do and their big game experience, which is much stronger than that of Souths’ will be a huge advantage.

Not surprisingly, there is nothing between the two in terms of betting with Melbourne getting a 1.5 start.

The last seven games have resulted in a total match score of 36 points or less and would expect no different here and a tight contest with nothing much between them.

TIP: SOUTHS 1 – 12

Odds comparison by NRL Odds:

South Sydney Rabbitohs	1.80	1.87	1.90	1.87	1.80	1.83
Melbourne Storm	2.05	1.97	1.90	1.97	2.05	1.97

Teams:

South Sydney Rabbitohs:
Greg Inglis, Nathan Merritt, Bryson Goodwin, Dylan Walker, Dylan Farrell, John Sutton, Adam Reynolds, Thomas Burgess, Issac Luke, Roy Asotasi, Chris McQueen, Ben Te’o, Sam Burgess, Interchange: Luke Keary, Jeff Lima, Jason Clark, George Burgess.

Melbourne Storm:
Billy Slater, Sisa Waqa, Will Chambers, Maurice Blair, Justin O’Neill, Brett Finch, Cooper Cronk, Jesse Bromwich, Cameron Smith, Bryan Norrie, Kevin Proctor, Ryan Hoffman, Ryan Hinchcliffe. Interchange (from): Jason Ryles, Tohu Harris, Jordan McLean, Kenneath Bromwich, Gareth Widdop