Manly Set to Storm Melbourne's Fortress

Manly are plotting to storm Melbourne's fortress and seize the mantle as the NRL's new super powers in Friday night's heavyweight preliminary final at AAMI Park.

The decade's most dominant forces will collide in a high-stakes encounter, the reward a shot at premiership glory and bragging rights as the NRL's most successful club.

Renewing their bitter finals rivalry, Melbourne and Manly are clashing in the playoffs for the first time since the Storm belted the Sea Eagles 40-12 in the 2009 qualifying final.

A year earlier, Manly buried the Storm 40-0 in the 2008 title mismatch at ANZ Stadium to avenge a 34-8 loss to Melbourne in the 2007 decider.

Now the Eagles are bidding to become the NRL's first triple premiers while the Storm could have been seeking their fourth title if they had not had two stripped for salary cap cheating.
Fittingly, the sides have split their past 10 matches.

But while the Eagles hold an 8-5 edge in clashes in Sydney since the Storm entered the league in 1998, conquering Melbourne on home soil has proven an altogether different proposition.
Manly have won only twice in nine matches in Melbourne and lost their only previous clash at AAMI Park - in round one last year.

"It is tougher playing them down there," admitted star five-eighth Kieran Foran.
"They always turn up. We're going to need to be at the top of our game."

Foran, 22, hasn't forgotten his finals debut in `09 - when the Storm ripped his side apart to end Manly's season before going on to win the premiership, which was later stripped for salary cap breaches.

But Sea Eagles skipper Jamie Lyon is confident of qualifying for the club's fourth grand final in six seasons - a tally to match the Storm's dream run from 2006-09 - and says they are relishing the challenge.

"We know it's going to be a tough ask going down there. It's always hard," Lyon said.
"But if you want to be the No.1 team, you've got to beat everyone and we can't wait."

While Lyon completed the entire game after being in doubt for last Friday night's 22-12 semi-final win over North Queensland, his co-captain Jason King is a new fitness concern after lasting only 27 minutes before succumbing to a shoulder injury.

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Warriors Fly Into Face of Gale-Force Storm

While the New Zealand Warriors head into the traditional Anzac Day clash with the Melbourne Storm armed with reinforcements, the NRL frontrunners ominously appear at optimum strength as they seek to continue their flawless start to 2012 with a record eighth successive victory.

Pending a final assessment at their solitary full training session today, the unbeaten Storm will carry their full complement of test stars and State of Origin hopefuls into a clash that has proved unusually problematic for the competition favourites.

The Warriors head to AAMI Park with doubts over two strike weapons – mercurial halfback Shaun Johnson and match-winning wing Manu Vatuvei – and have included Pita Godinet and Glen Fisiiahi as a precaution.

In contrast, the Storm's spine of Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith all emerged unscathed from the Kangaroos 20-12 Anzac test victory at Eden Park on Friday, likewise Jesse Bromwich, who made a strong debut in the Kiwis front row.

Ryan Hoffman and Ryan Hinchcliffe should also be available after Sunday's City versus Country trial for the NSW Origin team while, in a positive for the ninth-placed Warriors, fellow second-rower Feleti Mateo was named to start tomorrow night after also getting though the match in Mudgee.
Although the Storm are warm favourites, history suggests the Warriors, despite their fluctuating form, should not be discounted.

The Storm have won only four of their last 10 matches against the Warriors and last year succumbed 18-14 in the Anzac Day fixture before being eliminated in the preliminary final by an eight-point margin. Melbourne has also proved susceptible after a long lay-off between games, four of their six losses last season followed a break of eight days or longer, though head coach Craig Bellamy has worked on remedying that deficiency, to good effect.

The Storm had a nine-day preparation between the rounds five win over Newcastle and sixth-round victims North Queensland.

This 11-day gap since edging the Bulldogs 12-6 is the longest they have encountered but Bellamy was confident he had settled on an effective formula to manage the downtime.

"We've changed a couple of things around for our longer breaks and we've had one go and it seemed to go OK," Bellamy said, referring to the 42-18 win thumping of North Queensland.

"We've got to make sure we get the rest right and this time it is different. We gave the players four days off so it will be interesting to see how they come up."

Bellamy was satisfied with the effort of his non-representative players when they returned to training on Friday but expected a more polished performance with the stars back on board today.

"We are expecting to get better, when you have a break, the first thing that gets a bit rusty is your skills."
Attention to detail at training has been a priority for the Storm and a key to their unbeaten start to the campaign.
"We don't tolerate too much dropped ball or any errors in our session," said Smith, the Kangaroos and Storm's hooker and captain.

"We try to take that into our games. So far this season it's worked out really well."
That qualifies as the understatement of the season.

The Storm equalled their best start to a season when a superb defensive effort thwarted the Bulldogs and are now attempting to be the first club to notch eight wins in a row from the opening round since the Roosters managed 10 straight in 1996.

They only conceded two line breaks against the Bulldogs and, for the fourth consecutive game, their error count was in single figures – reasons the opponents in their 11 home games have scored more than 10 points only on two occasions.

With Slater, Cronk and Smith synchronised and English five-eighth Gareth Widdop maturing, the Storm complement the NRL's stingiest defence with the most prolific attack.
The Storm have so far amassed 210 points, 36 more than North Queensland while the 85 points conceded is 11 less than Brisbane.

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