With professional rugby getting back underway in Australia and New Zealand this week following its coronavirus-related suspension, it’s time to find out whether the Melbourne Storm can take care of business at home or whether the Canberra Raiders are the pick to pull off the bog road win in their round 3 matchup on Saturday. With both teams in this affair looking to remain unbeaten, let’s find out which team is offering the best value against their NRL betting odds.
NRL Raiders vs Storm Round 3
Why Bet On Melbourne
Melbourne is sitting in fourth place in the NRL standings with 30 points scored and 14 points allowed defensively (+16). The Storm opened their 2020 campaign by beating the Sea Eagles 18-4 on March 15 on the road before backing that up with a narrow 12-10 road win over the Sharks in Round 2 on march 21. Melbourne has a 74% completion rate and an 89.8% tackle efficiency with an average ball play speed of 3.89 seconds. Team captain and hooker Cameron Smith has a team-high 77 tackles while also recording team highs in points (14) and goals (7). Winger Suliasi Vunivalu has a team-high two tries.
Why Bet On Canberra
The Raiders are in third place in the NRL standings with 44 points scored and just 12 allowed defensively (+32). Canberra kicked off its 2020 campaign by subduing the Titans 24-6 on March 13 before backing that victory up with a 20-6 win against the Warriors on March 21. The Raiders have a 71% completion rate, an 88% tackle efficiency and an average ball play speed of 3.89 seconds. Captain and hooker Josh Hodgson has a team-high 82 tackles while captain and center Jarrod Croker has team highs in points (12) and goals (6). Five-Eighth Jack Wighton has a team-high 2 tries.
Expert Analysis and Prediction
Melbourne has gone 2-0 on the road while Canberra has gone 1-0 at home and on the road. While the Storm are slight favorites in this affair, I’m going to encourage you to back the Canberra Raiders to pull off the big road win, mostly because they’ve scored more points than Melbourne (44-30) while allowing two fewer points defensively than the Storm (14-12). The Raiders won both previous head-to-head meetings by recording a narrow 12-10 road win on September 14 of last year after recording a 22-18 road win just one month prior. Canberra gets the road win in this affair to make it three straight against Melbourne!
Pick: Canberra 20 Melbourne 16
General Game Info Canberra Raiders (2-0-0) vs. Melbourne Storm (2-0-0)
- When: Saturday, May 30 at 4:35 PM ET
- Where: AAMI Park, Melbourne
- Raiders vs Storm Live: Fox
- Spread: Canberra Raiders +2½ / Melbourne Storm -2½
