KEY POINTS:
Is it history or is it form that wins NRL grand finals?
If you favour history, back Melbourne, who have racked up three minor premierships and are playing in their third-straight title game against an opponent they beat home-and-away during the season and the one they whacked 34-8
in this game last season.
If it is form you favour look to Manly, who had the harder preliminary final game and appear to be firing on all cylinders with a full-strength team, while the Storm will miss captain Cameron Smith through suspension and test backrower Ryan Hoffman who is injured.
The preliminary final scorelines were similar but the Storm did not have to work hard at all to get over Cronulla 28-0, the Sharks handing them a mountain of first-half ball through errors and turnovers.
Compare that game to the first week finals game where the Warriors won by denying Melbourne points and forcing them away from their comfort zone, making them try more risky plays, driving them into making errors.
That was what they were unable to do to Manly last Saturday. Had Manu Vatuvei scored at six minutes and the Warriors got their tails up, the Eagles their heads down, it might have been different. But the 32-6 scoreline did not signify a capitulation similar to that by the Sharks. The Warriors had simply run out of steam, they had played their best games in Melbourne to beat the Storm and then in Auckland to down the Roosters.
It may be the same for Melbourne, forced to play in week two after they lost to the team in eighth place, then forced to work hard in every second of that game in Brisbane to eliminate the Broncos. Then they travelled back to Sydney to face the Sharks and will once again fly back to Sydney, where they are hated.
The Sydney papers have been full of rancour directed at Storm management, particularly their CEO Brian Waldron, their coach Craig Bellamy and their captain Cameron Smith. Various old greats, current players, former referees and elite wrestlers have claimed the Storm are giving their sport a bad name.
The grapple tackle and Smith's two-game ban for his use of it on Brisbane's Sam Thaiday are presented as being at the heart of the matter. But there is a very real fear that the trophy will again be stolen by the "Mexicans" from south of the border. And that would make three years running that the title has not been held in what they regard as the home of the game in the Southern Hemisphere.
With the hated Silvertails from Manly playing the Mexicans, some who bought tickets when they went on sale mid-season before the combatants were known now have them for sale in pubs for face value or less. Even in Sydney's northern beaches there are some people who shun them. "No thanks, couldn't stand it if Manly won," said Martin Horwood, one of a multitude of Kiwis here who are out of sorts after the Warriors lost.
Yet, on paper, a match between these sides should thrill the neutrals. There is only one team that has scored more tries than Melbourne's 126 in the 2008 season, Manly with 132.
The defence statistics of the pair are all but even. There are intriguing match-ups all over the park. And in many cases the outcome of those may determine who gets test places in the Kangaroos. The Kiwis on stage are also performing with hope of World Cup jerseys.
At fullback, the amazing kick-return and broken-play running of Billy Slater will be compared to the split-second timing that brings Manly's Brett Stewart so many touchdowns. In the centres are boom teenager Israel Folau and clever veteran Matt Geyer on one side, Kiwis test star Steve Matai and Origin player Steve Bell on the other. At five-eighth Storm's A$450,000 ($529,000)-a-season man Greg Inglis has admitted he hasn't fired enough in this series to repay the faith the club showed in signing his three-year deal, while Manly's Jamie Lyon has stated his intention to make a run for the test No 6 jersey.
At halfback it is Manly's Matt Orford, their organiser, against the understudy he kept sidelined at Melbourne, Cooper Cronk, the Aussie selectors giving a show of how close he is to international selection when they called him into the camp ahead of the Centenary test when it looked as though Johnathan Thurston wouldn't play because of injury.
There are international props on both sides, Jeff Lima and Brent Kite in the No 8 jerseys. Michael Crocker, Jeremy Smith and Dallas Johnson would make any coach's eyes water as a backrow combination, as would Glenn Stewart and Glenn Hall and Anthony Watmough.
Manly have been driven by the memory of the way they choked in last year's game after Crocker took Brett Stewart out of the game with a huge hit in front of the Eagles posts. Watmough put it in words: "They kept running at me and I couldn't handle it. I was a bit overawed."
You can bet he and his teammates won't be overawed this weekend.
And if there is one spot where the Eagles have a major advantage over their counterparts it is at the crucial position of hooker. With Smith out, the Storm rely on rookie Russell Aitken who was adequate against Cronulla but nothing startling.
Adequate will simply not be good enough against the Sea Eagles, who are in top gear and steamrolling to their first trophy win since 1997.
