NRL Grand Final Betting Tips: 6 Selections From Storm Vs Broncos
An NRL Grand Final without the Panthers? We’ve forgotten what that feels like!
The competition’s climax is expected to set new television ratings records after bringing the most popular teams in Queensland and Victoria to a sold-out Accor Stadium, ensuring the entire east coast will be keenly tuned in on Sydney.
It is of course one of the biggest betting events of the year for all NRL betting apps and that’s why we’re here to delve deep into the numbers to assist you with your singles or your same game multis so that we can all finish a profitable year on the best note possible.
Lotteries like first tryscorer and Clive Churchill Medal markets are not our thing, so best of luck to you if you decide to throw some darts at the board there, but we’ll instead be searching across several bookmakers for the best value - and in one case, the worst - in some popular markets.
NRL Grand Final Predictions:
- Storm To Win - 1.90 With Picklebet
- Storm HT/FT Double - 2.35 With Unibet
- Over 41.5 Total Points - 1.90 With PlayUp
- Josiah Karapani To Score A Try - 2.37 With Betr
- Will Warbrick To Score A Try - 2.20 With Ladbrokes
- Kotoni Staggs To Score A Try - 3.00 With Bet365
Melbourne v Brisbane (Sunday, 7:30pm AEST)
Melbourne qualified for the Grand Final on home soil last week with what was far from their best performance of the season, which is a scary proposition for a Brisbane side that have to continue doing things the hard way after some slow starts in recent weeks.
Brisbane have been admirably gritty in their run to the Grand Final and their fitness has been one of their strongest aspects of their game at the back end of the season, but that could be a touch blunted by having played last Sunday and therefore incurring a rest disadvantage of nearly 48 hours.
Last week’s count of 41 missed tackles against Penrith is also of some concern and something they cannot afford to repeat here.
Storm coach Craig Bellamy knows success inside and out and is preparing for a remarkable 11th Grand Final - Aaron Murphy
Few men know better about how to get the best of their stars at the right time of year, and this team is a polished finals-winning machine.
Both teams have very enviable attacks, as we’ll explain below, but Melbourne’s defending has often been superior throughout the season such as when they defeated the Broncos 22-2 at home in Round 23.
You only need to review their finals wins against Cronulla and Canterbury for a fresh reminder of how impenetrable they can be at their best.
Match Selection: Storm To Win - 1.90 With Picklebet
If you fancy the Storm to lift the trophy and are looking for a bit more bang for your buck, you could do worse than to back them to be leading at the end of both halves.
That’s because when they get out to a lead in a final - and that could be likely if Brisbane are slow out of the blocks yet again - they almost never look back.
In fact, Melbourne continued a remarkable streak last week against Cronulla that has now seen them win 29 consecutive finals under Craig Bellamy when leading at half-time.
Match Selection: Storm HT/FT Double - 2.35 With Unibet
Our most confident of these six plays by far is for a very humble total points mark of 41.5 to be cleared comfortably.
These are two of the three heaviest scoring teams of the competition, both averaging 27 points per game and they’re both enjoying some of their best attacking rugby of the season with Brisbane coming home strongly more often than not since they lost to the Storm in Round 23.
The boys from Melbourne are now at full strength with their world-beating spine (Papenhuyzen, Munster, Grant and Hughes) reunited last week and all performing very well individually, even if they didn’t link well together in the eyes of their head coach.
Melbourne have the second-best points against average (18.8) of the season but haven’t always been able to hold back strong attacking sides such as the Dolphins (L 42-22), Sharks (L 31-26), Roosters (L 40-10) or the Broncos themselves (L 30-14) when things don’t go right, and they’ll need to be at their absolute best on Sunday to keep Brisbane quiet. We don’t anticipate they will, even despite tipping them to win.
Head-to-head history is also strongly in favour of this play, with 10 of the last 13 encounters seeing more than 41.5 total points scored.
The two equal favourites with most NRL betting sites for Brisbane’s most likely tryscorer is fullback Reece Walsh and winger Josiah Karapani, and perhaps with good reason considering they have both scored tries in five of their last six games.
But the left edge of the Storm defence has been particularly vulnerable at the back end of the season and opposition right wingers have been able to get through with notable ease - think Sione Katoa’s double in the preliminary final or Mark Nawaqanitawase’s four tries four weeks back, for example.
Karapani himself iced the Broncos’ 30-14 win over Melbourne at the end of the season, and with that defensive vulnerability in mind, we believe that Karapani presents better value than Walsh at the same price.
Player Prop: Josiah Karapani To Score A Try - 2.37 With Betr
Speaking of right wings, Melbourne Storm’s own Will Warbrick has made a spectacular return to rugby league since missing several months with concussion-related issues following a Round 4 head knock against St George Illawarra.
Warbrick has dotted down in each of the Storm’s last three matches, including the recent loss to the Broncos, for a total of 15 try-scoring appearances from 30 games since the start of 2024.
On that 50% strike rate alone, anything better than even money is appealing value, but when combined with his more recent form, a career record of tries in four of his five games against the Broncos, and Melbourne’s slick attacking fluency with Munster and Hughes in the halves, it could well be excellent value.
Player Prop: Will Warbrick To Score A Try - 2.20 With Ladbrokes
We didn’t mention there’s yet another Broncos player to have scored tries in five of their last six matches - little wonder they have been racking up so many points!
Kotoni Staggs presents excellent value at as much as three dollars with some Australian betting sites considering his personal success has been synonymous with that of his team, finding the line in six of his last eight matches and the Broncos winning seven of them.
The most curious aspect of that pattern is the two exceptions, both of which were against the Storm.
Craig Bellamy’s men found ways to keep him out of play in both Rounds 23 and 27 with Staggs spending a lot of time trying to nullify the aerial threat presented by his direct opponent Xavier Coates.
But you can’t keep a good man down for long, and Staggs has been offered a little additional motivation by Stefano Utoikamanu’s mind games on Monday, so we’d much prefer his price as an anytime tryscorer to that of Coates, who last week scored his first finals try in three years.
Player Prop: Kotoni Staggs To Score A Try - 3.00 With Bet365
