Storm vs Titans NRL Rd 21 betting tips & odds – August 5, 2022

Friday Night Footy will get underway in Melbourne when the Storm play host to the Gold Coast Titans in round 21 of the 2022 NRL season.

Melbourne bounced back last start with a win over the Warriors, while the Titans continued their wretched season with a loss to Canberra at home.

The Storm have fallen as low as they realistically ever have form-wise under Craig Bellamy and last week was the start of their rise towards the finals.

They have 80% of their first-choice back five unavailable for the rest of the year and they’ll be boosted by the short-term loan of Tigers winger David Nofoaluma, who will help their yardage game tremendously.

Particularly in the loss to South Sydney, they struggled to get the ball out of their own half and as a result they spent the night defending. Even Bellamy-coached teams can’t win big games like that.

What they did get right against the Warriors was the manner in which they won the game. To build your game back up before finals, you have to go in with ‘defence first’ as your mentality, and the Storm were prepared to grind out an ugly win.

With the injuries they have they can’t blow teams off the park, but if they are able to get in an arm-wrestle each week, it gives the likes of Cameron Munster, Jahrome Hughes, Brandon Smith and Harry Grant to drag this team back into contention.

They come in as a hot $1.16 favourite at Ladbrokes up against the team that will most likely get the wooden spoon, but they’ll need to show more than they did last week for punters to have any faith in them come September.

Justin Olam is an absolute special to get a try in this one. The Titans hate tackling on their goal line and Olam loves running hard. It’s a recipe for disaster.

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There is a universe that exists where the Titans could be winless from 19 games in 2022.

Their wins are as followed:

• Two-point win over the Warriors.
• 8-6 over the Tigers with an 80th-minute miracle try.
• Golden point win over the Dragons at Magic Round.

For a team many expected to make the finals this year, it is about as bad as a season can go.

It only gets worse for the Titans as they head south to take on an opponent they’ve only managed to defeat six times in their 15-year history. They have just two wins in Melbourne, with their most recent coming in 2014. It might just be a record of the past, but it does indicate what a tough challenge this has traditionally been for the Titans.

They had their moments against the Raiders before going down by 12 points, so will this game head in the same direction?

Melbourne are still trying to iron out the kinks, while Gold Coast have periods of good play which result in them finding the scoreboard. It has the hallmarks of an unlikely 1-12 point margin, but perhaps the online bookmakers see it differently setting the line at +17.5.

Key matchup: Asofa-Solomona vs Fa’asuamaleaui

Nelson Asofa-Solomona has attracted plenty of attention from fans for some questionable actions in the ruck to the head of his opponents, so how will someone like Tino Fa’asuamaleaui react if it happens? ‘Big Tino’ has already had to deal with a Bulldogs forward pack who wanted him on a platter following State of Origin III, so will things flare up if NAS strikes one of his teammates?

Storm vs Titans Rd 21 betting predictions

Melbourne win and put together some nice tries, but they’ll leak some tries they shouldn’t. That makes the 1-12 margin at $3.60 awfully tempting.

Storm vs Titans NRL same game multi tips

Titans +17.5 with David Nofoaluma to score a try at any time gets you $6.05 at Neds.

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