AAMI Park will play host to Friday's NRL game between Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters. The game kicks off at 7:50 pm with Melbourne Storm heading into the game as favourites with the bookmakers. Continue reading for our in-depth preview of the Melbourne Storm vs. Sydney Roosters game and give you our free tips and bets.

When: Friday September 15, 2023 at 7:50 pm

Where: AAMI Park

Bet: Bet On This Match HERE

Melbourne Storm vs Sydney Roosters Odds

Melbourne Storm vs Sydney Roosters Preview

Melbourne Storm are attempting to regroup from a jarring qualifying final defeat, while the streaking Sydney Roosters head south to keep their remarkable late-season revival going – but both sides are battling a spate of backline injuries.

The Storm crashed 26-0 to the Broncos last Friday, producing a mistake-ridden and ill-disciplined performance that ranked among the club’s worst-ever on the finals stage.

The Melbourne pack was thoroughly outpointed, blue-chip trio Cam Munster, Jahrome Hughes and Harry Grant were poor and the back five – Xavier Coates aside – was ordinary at best.

The latter stages of the rout were compounded by ankle injuries to Coates and Ryan Papenhuyzen. Reimis Smith comes onto the wing, Alec MacDonald takes Papenhuyzen’s place on the bench and Justin Olam is back in the centres with Young Tonumaipea (head knock) dropping out.

The Roosters’ back-from-the-dead revival has extended to six straight wins, knocking the Sharks out of the finals 13-12 in enemy territory after trailing by six inside the last 15 minutes.

Big guns James Tedesco, Sam Walker, Joey Manu and Lindsay Collins stood tall, while unheralded types like rookie second-rower Siua Wong were outstanding despite their lack of playoffs experience.

The Roosters are counting the cost of the gutsy victory, however, with Manu, Billy Smith and Joseph Suaalii all ruled out with injury. Paul Momirovski and Corey Allan are the new centre pairing while Jaxson Paulo earns a recall on the wing.

The Storm have won seven of their last eight against the Roosters, including a pair of convincing victories in 2023: 28-8 at AAMI Park in Round 6 and 30-16 at the SCG in Round 20.

The clubs have met four times in the finals with the Roosters boasting a 3-1 advantage, following up their one-sided 2018 grand final triumph with a tense preliminary final win in 2019. Their only post-season encounter in Melbourne was in 1998, when the Rooster prevailed 26-12.

The Storm are on an eight-match winning streak at AAMI Park, but they are a modest 10-6 in finals matches at their home base. The Roosters have an all-time 4-5 finals record outside Sydney.

There’s no question the 2023 versions of these perennial grand final contenders are a shadow of their usual dominant selves. But both are laced with premiership winners and big-match performers.

The Broncos provided the Roosters with a blueprint for beating the Storm that they are well-suited to roll out: aggressive defence and cutting down the time Munster, Hughes and Grant have with the ball – but how much will the trio of backline outs disrupt the visitors?

While its no surprise to see the Storm installed as favourites at home, they look significantly overvalued at $1.26 to advance to a preliminary final date with Penrith. This has low-scoring nail-biter written all over it.

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