MUNSTER: WE DESERVE GRAND FINAL BERTH
STAR five-eighth Cameron Munster believes the NRL fraternity is sick of
Melbourne winning premierships and will be “death-riding” the Storm in Saturday night’s grand-final qualifier against the Panthers.
But Munster has turned up the heat on the Panthers ahead of the sudden-death showdown at Suncorp Stadium, claiming that the Storm have been the best team this year and “deserve” to win their third title in five years.
Melbourne’s famed siege mentality is in overdrive, with Munster revealing the
Storm’s motivation to win back-to-back titles is fuelled by external jealousy over their success as the best NRL club of the past two decades.
Should the Storm beat Penrith this week, they would qualify for their ninth grand final in 15 years.
Underlining Melbourne’s brilliance, Craig Bellamy’s troops are chasing the club’s fifth decider in six seasons _ and their first back-to-back premierships since the Storm’s inception in 1998.
“I know everyone is deathriding us to lose this week,” Munster said.
“We’ve been so successful for so long and there will be a lot of punters and fans from different clubs who would love for us to lose to Penrith and get knocked out.
“The number of people who want us to win the comp is probably one in a thousand.
“There’s critics out there who would want us to lose because of the premierships we have won and all the success we’ve had with the Big Three (Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk).
“There is no doubt in my mind a lot of people in the game will be death-riding us, but that is motivation to send Josh Addo-carr, Dale Finucane and Nicho (Hynes) out as winners with a premiership.”
Ivan Cleary’s Panthers are under pressure to clinch a breakthrough premiership after their shock loss to Souths in the opening week of the finals was followed by a grinding 8-6 defeat of the Eels on Saturday night.
There is a feeling Penrith have gone off the boil at the worst possible time. “It would be nice to get to the grand final again,” Munster said.
“No disrespect to anyone, but we have been the best team all year and we deserve to be in the grand final.
“But no one will give us anything. We have to work hard this week against Penrith because their best footy and our best footy isn’t too far apart.
“We won last year, but I know the hunger is still there to do it again.
“Everyone said it would be a Penrith-storm grand final this year, but that’s not going to be the case and we want to be the team still standing.
“One of us won’t be there next week and I’m confident we can get the job done.”