NRL Grand Final preview with predicted score & recommended bets

As well as providing his best value bets every week, our NRL guru Steve Green also previews every NRL game for members. Here’s his NRL Grand Final preview… and scroll down for his best value bets!

NRL Grand Final: Panthers vs Eels

I tipped the Eels to finish in the top 4, but I thought they would struggle in September. In the past the Eels have flown out of the blocks and avoided most of the disruption faced by the typical ladder leaders around Origin time. This has enabled them to finish high up the ladder, however usually the strong clubs like Roosters, Storm and Souths time their run and come over the top of them in the finals.

🎁 Win! NRL Grand Final Competition

Enter here Just tip a series of outcomes on the big game… whoever gets the most correct is the winner!

First prize One month of any Champion Bets racing or sport membership

Second prize $50 Amazon Gift Voucher

But Coach Arthur is no stooge, and he has been building for this moment of the better part of a decade. He is an excellent coach, and he has assembled a team capable and worthy of winning the Premiership. Their past two performances have been excellent. While there has been a lot of talk about the forward pass that Moses threw to set up Penisini try, there was nowhere near enough attention paid to the face that Leilua’s try should have been called back because Hess interfered with Moses.

My point is – the Eels deserve to be there.

They will be playing in front of about 50,000 of their loyal fans and they have the best chance to win a Grand Final since 1986. While the easy option is to just say the Panthers will win because they are a great side, I think this game is far more complex and will be far closer than the market is predicting with the 8.5-point head start.

Which way punters? #NRLGF @TopSport_com_au

— ChampionBets.com.au (@ChampionBetsAU) September 26, 2022

But before I talk about the Eels, I want to reflect on Souths’ loss to the Panthers last week. It was heartbreaking to see them blow their 12-0 lead, but I saw enough to know that the Panthers are vulnerable for this one.

Souths let the Panthers off the hook

When the Panthers were down 12-0 and Souths had all the momentum, all it took was a wayward Latrell pass to Tatola to swing the momentum of the game. Up until that point, Souths were having plenty of luck on the fringes and the Panthers’ middle forwards were getting outmuscled.

But from there, the Panthers had a powerful set that was finished off by a brilliant individual run by Api, who scooted from dummy half to slide over the line. Although this was a key turning point, Souths had an opportunity to steady the ship with 1 minute left in the first half, still leading by 6. All they had to do was work it to the middle for Mitchell to attempt a 1 pointer, which would have given Souths an impressive 7-point half time lead.

Instead, Souths attacked the Panthers left-side defence, only for Graham to spill an absolute sitter. From there To’o streaked away, with Walker getting humiliated by a To’o don’t argue, and Cook tripping over Walker in a scene that deserved clown music!

I’m not sure I have ever seen a bigger turning point in a match. Considering how much we stood to win on Souths if they even just made the GF, it was an infuriating moment of madness.

Although the score was 12-12, you could just tell this 5 minutes of horror had turned the game and sure enough, the Panthers ran away with a convincing win.

While it is true that the Panthers have done this kind of thing consistently over the past 3 seasons, it’s worth examining what happened against Souths to understand what the Eels must do to win this weekend.

The Eels cannot make silly strategic errors. They must make sure every decision they make is the right one. Too often in the NRL, teams make silly decisions and with the physical skills of the top teams so close, games are often decided by those key turning points.

While it was heartbreaking to see Souths fail so spectacularly in that five-minute window, I am sure the Eels were watching and thinking ‘the Panthers are definitely beatable…’

The main weapon deployed by the Panthers was a targeted short kicking game, which caught Latrell out of position on multiple occasions. While this tactic is very hard to guard against, there are a few things that Souths failed to do that I’m sure the Eels will learn from:

1. Kenner and Milne were a poor winger combination to bring into a preliminary final. Neither were well positioned, and this opened up opportunities for the Panthers. The halves also have a role to play here – they need to be ready to swoop back into the in-goal to clean up any kicks that come their way.
2. Mitchell is not fit enough to cover the ground needed of a fullback, the Eels won’t have this issue with Gutherson (discussed more further below).
3. The Eels will be alert to this risk and make a better effort to block the grubber with their feet or, at worst, make it difficult for the chaser to run through. Souths failed dismally in this regard.

The Eels are not afraid of the Panthers

The NRL Grand Final teams have clashed three times this season, with the Eels winning two and the Panthers one.

In the first semi-final loss to the Panthers, the Eels were ruined by a Waqa Blake’s inability to catch Nathan Cleary’s bombs. Up until Blake’s errors, the Eels were winning and had the better of the play. Once again, there were signs that the Panthers were beatable… and that match was at the Panthers home ground!

Although the Panthers’ ability to out-grind their opponents makes them a very hard team to beat, the Eels have shown this year that they are the team best placed to do it. They have a powerful forward pack, so will not be intimidated by the likes of Fish, Martin, Kikau and Leota.

Their spine matches up well against the Panthers, with the pairing of Moses and Brown just as good as Cleary / Luai on my ratings. While Edwards has a better running game than Gutherson, the Eels number 1 is craftier with the ball in hand. Api has an edge on Mahoney, and shutting down Api is the key to the Eels winning this one.

And then you have the home ground advantage… although the crowd will be evenly split, I think the Eels will probably have a slight advantage in terms of the makeup of the crowd…which could be helpful when it comes down to the referee policing the Panthers’ insane defensive line speed.

The FINAL Team Lists of the year are here! May out, Brown named on the bench and Opacic named in the reserves.

— NRL (@NRL) September 27, 2022

Panthers’ weakness

The one try the Eels scored against the Panthers in Week 1 of the finals was a simple forward gap run off a flat Mahoney pass. The Eels scored a very similar try last week against the Cowboys and again a week earlier against the Raiders.

The Eels have big forwards with good hands, and while the Panthers defensive structure is very hard to crack, if they can get some decent ball on the Panthers goal line, then this will be how they try to go through the Panthers.

The other point of weakness for the Panthers is Charlie Staines, who will be filling in for the injured Taylan May. Staines is not very powerful and as can be seen by Souths’ second try last week, he is prone to get caught out with indecision in defence. I have no doubt the Eels will be directing a lot of traffic towards Staines, with Sivo licking his lips at the prosect of going 1-1 against a much smaller opponent.

NRL Grand Final: Predicted scores

On my ratings, the Panthers deserve to be favourites, but not by as much as the bookies are suggesting. The Eels’ past two games have seen them demolish an in-form Raiders team and beat a gritty Cowboys team in Townsville.

Predicted score
Panthers 20
Eels 18

NRL Grand Final: Recommended bet

Eels +8.5 $1.90 at TopSport

$1.90

Clive Churchill Medal Betting

Both Cleary and Moses are incredibly short. I am not sure I have seen a player as short as Cleary is and while that makes sense based on his current form and the importance of his kicking game, I think the Eels will direct so much attention toward him that he’ll struggle to dominate the game as most expect.

I often look to the fullbacks to see if either offer value. Since 2009, four of the thirteen Dally M winners have been fullbacks (Billy Slater in 2009, Darius Boyd in 2010, Billy Slater in 2017 and Ryan Papenhuyzen in 2020). During those thirteen years, a halfback has also won it on four occasions also.

So I think you are usually best to go with backing a 1 or a 7

However as explained above, the halfbacks are usually much shorter that the fullbacks. This year, although Mitch Moses for the Eels and Cleary and Edwards for the Panthers are the top three favourites at most bookies, Clint Gutherson to is paying $12.

🎁 Win! NRL Grand Final Competition

Enter here Just tip a series of outcomes on the big game… whoever gets the most correct is the winner!

First prize One month of any Champion Bets racing or sport membership

Second prize $50 Amazon Gift Voucher

If the Eels are to win this, then I think Gutherson will be one of the best players in the match and I like the price on offer. While Gutherson has detractors, he is a fantastic fullback and this game will require him to have a blinder. Primarily because the best way for the Eels to protect against Cleary’s kicking onslaught will be for Gutherson to be well positioned. He is far better than Sivo and Blake under the high ball and he is one of the fittest guys in the NRL, and has a great sense of anticipation. So he can sweep across the in-goal and shut down the Panthers’ short kicking game which proved so costly to Souths last weekend.

With the ball in hand, Gutherson is awesome at setting up his wingers with cut-out passes. And his running game is massively underrated, having averaged over 150 metres this season and just shy of 200 metres on average in his past two outings.

Clive Churchill Medal: Recommended bet

Clint Gutherson $12 at TopSport

$12