For the first time in a long time, the Penrith Panthers will not begin the new NRL round as competition leaders!
As they’ve done so many times this century, the Melbourne Storm have now stamped themselves as the club to beat in 2021, and they’ll be eager to consolidate top spot by beating Wests Tigers in Round 15.
Origin sides for Game 2 will be announced at the conclusion of the weekend, and while injuries are surely the only reason for Blues coach Brad Fittler to consider changes, Maroons boss Paul Green will be keeping an eye on a host of potentials, and we’re expecting some huge solo performances from Thursday night onwards.
Check out my complete NRL Round 15 Tips below.
Thursday night will see the down and out Broncos try and steal something from top four prospect the Rabbitohs.
There is clearly no arguing with the class difference between these two sides, and that is well and truly echoed in the $5.74 vs $1.14 that we are up with at publish.
A close to full strength Broncos were comfortably beaten by the out of form Raiders in Round 14, while Souths comfortably accounted for Newcastle.
I’m expecting a similar result for both sides in Round 15.
One of the better contests of the Round looks like materialising between the Cowboys and the Sharks first-up on Friday.
The Cowboys have certainly overachieved in 2021, but they were taught a real lesson by the Sea Eagles in Round 14, who themselves were without their best player in Tom Trbojevic.
Having scored two early tries to go up 12-0, they completely went to water and leaked 50 points.
They line up opposite a Cronulla side who became just the second club to defeat the Panthers in 2021, and regardless of how many stars Ivan Cleary was resting, the confidence that effort will have installed in the team will be enormous.
I’m happy to take the value around Cronulla as outsiders.
Friday night’s primetime slot has been reserved for a mouth-watering showdown between the Penrith Panthers and the Sydney Roosters.
The Panthers suffered their first two losses of the campaign in Rounds 13 and 14, but given the seven or eight Origin players they were forced to do without, it’s not hard to understand why.
Ivan Cleary will select an almost full-strength side in Round 15, and I don’t see why they wont return to winning form.
The Roosters are still thereabouts in terms of the NRL’s best teams, but there is a still a class difference between them and the Panthers, and they’d need to go to a new level to win.
The league’s two most untrustworthy sides from a betting perspective will go toe-to-toe in Newcastle on Saturday afternoon.
It has become virtually impossible to predict what we are going to get from the Knights and the Warriors each week. Both clubs boast plenty of stars and overall potential, but they fail to deliver more often than not.
Usually, that means we can find value in their opposition, but given they are facing each other this week, I think we need to look into their respective backlines and extract a couple of anytime try scorers.
The Dragons will take on the Raiders on Saturday evening and at publish, the bookies cannot split them.
St George were absolutely awful on Round 14, and they became just the second side to suffer defeat at the hands of the lowly Bulldogs.
Prior to that, it appeared as though they were bouncing back into competitive form, which included a thrashing win of the Broncos and a single-point loss to the Sharks.
The Raiders finally managed to snap their awful run of form against a bad Broncos side in Round 14, but they had virtually everything in their favour on Saturday night, and I’m not convinced that they can repeat the effort and result in Round 15.
The Melbourne Storm made a real statement in Round 14, and they are very firm $1.09 favourites to defeat Wests Tigers (proudly sponsored by Neds) on Saturday night.
Bellamy’s Boys have now won eleven games in a row, and with the Panthers slipping for two consecutive weeks, they have no usurped that side in overall standings.
Round 14 heralded a demolition job of the Warriors, and they are full of running heading into the back-half of the regular season.
The Tigers’ inconsistency has continued to let them down, and they were unable to frank their Round 13 effort and win over the Panthers when they were crushed by the Eels last week.
It’s extremely difficult to build a case for anyone taking on Melbourne at the moment.
Another huge mismatch will see the Eels taking on the Bulldogs in Sydney’s west on Sunday afternoon.
Having only lost once through the first ten rounds of the competition, Parramatta were defeated by Manly and the Rabbitohs in succession, but have subsequently bounced back with huge wins over the Knights and Tigers, piling on 40 points on both occasions.
The Bulldogs have been next to awful for the entire season, but to their credit, they returned a nice performance to beat the Dragons on Monday afternoon, and they are sure to have taken plenty of confidence from the result.
I still cannot have them.
The Neds Gold Coast Titans will host the Sunday afternoon free-to-air fixture, but they will certainly have their hands full with the Manly Sea Eagles.
The Titans returned another gutsy effort in Round 14, and they can certainly count themselves unlucky not have lost by a single point, and to a very good Roosters team.
The effort was bolstered by some impressive solo performances, namely captain Jamal Fogarty who was in almost everything and scored a double.
Manly were forced to line up without Turbo in Round 14, and when they conceded two early tries, it looked like it was going to be a very long night in the office.
Fast forward 70 minutes though and DCE has put on a masterclass and helped lead his side to an enormous win.
I think that this will be a better contest than match betting suggests but I can’t look past the Sea Eagles, so we’re going to look for the value elsewhere.