Week 1 of the NRL finals series has arrived!
Sixteen teams have become eight and by Sunday night, just six will remain in the hunt for the 2020 NRL Premiership.
The action is underway on Friday night when the minor premiers do battle with the reigning premiers, before the Raiders host the Sharks and the Storm face the Eels on Saturday.
The final match of the round will see either South Sydney or Newcastle progress to Week 2, at the expense of the other.
I’ve had my say on all four games in the NRL Finals Week 1 tips below.
The first preliminary finalist will be determined when the minor premiers face off with the fourth-placed Sydney Roosters on Friday night.
The Panthers have been close to faultless in 2020.
Minus a draw with the Knights and a loss to the Eels, Penrith have proven far too good for every other club during the home and away season, and they rightfully enter the finals full of running, with huge confidence and every chance of winning their third ever premiership.
Nathan Cleary has been a revelation and deserves plenty of praise, but it has been a truly impressive collective performance that has seen them into this position, and that will be the key to their continued success in October.
The Roosters meanwhile enter this match off the back of their most forgettable performance of the season, a truly horrifying 60-8 loss to South Sydney.
While I’m certainly not jumping in with the people who bravely jumped in after the final siren and said the can’t win a third-consecutive premiership, I do concede that it will be harder than I initially thought.
Even with key injuries, they still have one of the best rosters in the 2020 NRL Finals, and while last week’s performance was surely too bad to be true, I think the turn in form required to knock off the Panthers this week will be too large.
Potentially the most competitive game in Week 1 of the NRL finals will see the Raiders and Sharks do battle in the nation’s capital.
The Raiders have overachieved in 2020.
Sure, they made last year’s decider and that would only make for a confident season in the wake, but they’ve been forced to weather several key injuries and crucial points of the year (and for long periods of time), and they’ve still be able to beat most other sides, more often than not.
It really is a testament to the type of footy brain that Ricky Stuart possess, and his ability to inspire and lead his side to success.
In my opinion, the Sharks are one of the two bigger myths in the 2020 NRL finals but many times this season, they’ve pulled out an enormous performance against a genuine heavyweight.
They were also clearly better than eight other sides in reaching this point of the season.
I can’t completely rule them out of this contest and for that reason, I think that they’re probably good enough to finish within 14 points.
Betting suggests that Saturday night’s game between the Storm and the Eels will be the most one-sided in Week 1 of the NRL finals, and I think that the bookies have absolutely nailed it.
It has been a few years since the Storm last tasted premiership glory, but they have genuinely been the league’s benchmark since the mid noughties and I think that they are the side to beat in the 2020 NRL finals.
They’ve outclassed pretty much every other side in 2020, they’ve rested players appropriately, are at pretty much full strength, and just know how to do it at this time of year.
They come up against a side that I think will go out in straight sets, the Parramatta Eels.
They performed well very early after the COVID break and got themselves firmly into the top four, but they really haven’t been convincing for quite a while now, and it would take something very special to see them into the finish of this game, or indeed any finals contest.
I think the Storm will make a statement, and I think that it will completely destroy the Eels’ confidence.
Week 1 of the finals will conclude in Sydney on Sunday with something of an intriguing fixture between Souths and Newcastle.
South Sydney have been the NRL’s most untrustworthy club in 2020.
Two weeks ago, they were beaten by the then last-placed Bulldogs, and they followed that up with a 60-8 flogging of the Roosters. What? How could that have possibly happened in the space of eight days?
They probably do deserve their clear favouritism over the Knights, who themselves have been impossible to trust but honestly, who bloody knows what we’re going to get from them?
The Knights were comfortably defeated by the mighty Neds Gold Coast Titans in Round 20 and really, they are just there to make up the numbers in the 2020 NRL finals.
If they don’t lose this week, I’m certain that they will in Week 2, and I really don’t have anything positive to say of their prospects.
For all of those reasons, I’m going to stay away from match betting and the line, and hope that one of the countless try scoring weapons crosses for the first.