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Magic Round’s Saturday night feature is one of the most unpredictable matches of the round, with a Melbourne Storm side fresh off a drought-breaking win facing an Eels side who confounded the form line to spring a big upset against North Queensland in Townsville on Friday night.
Neither the Storm or the Eels have lived up to expectations so far this season.
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Melbourne have had a horrible run of setbacks that have impacted many of their key figures and the Eels have had to cope with a shocking run of injuries that have severely tested their depth.
Mitchell Moses (right) debates a decision with referee Liam Kennedy late in the Eels thrilling round 10 win over the Cowboys. NRL Images
Coming into Saturday night’s game, which will be shown live and free on Nine and 9Now, they sit 14th and 15th on the ladder. Both teams will almost certainly lose key players to Origin, so it could yet be a clash that goes some way to determining the shape of the finals. It’s hard to see both teams making the eight from this position and it’s very possible that both will miss out – a scenario that would have seemed obscene before the season started.
We’re only at round 11, in mid-May, but this is a must win game.
And according to Andrew Johns it’ll be “closer than what people think”.
Harry Grant, Cameron Munster and Jahrome Hughes were at their influential best in Sunday’s 44-16 trouncing of the Tigers. Bookmakers have responded by installing them as heavy favourites to make it two in a row against the Eels, with TAB listing them as $1.37 chances versus the Eels’ $3.15 in the head-to-head market as of Thursday afternoon.
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The flipside to that narrative is the stunning late surge from Parramatta last Friday night, with star halfback Mitchell Moses highly influential in the closing stages as the Eels came from behind to spring an unlikely 33-30 upset in golden point.
Moses engineered one of two late tries in the dying minutes of regular time by darting up a narrow short side to create an overlap and put his winger away.
It was this moment that had Brad Fittler purring, with the legendary five-eighth seeing it as a hugely positive sign for both Parramatta and NSW.
“Watching Mitchell come down that right hand side at the death of the game, what he’s been doing, it’s been conservative from the point of view that his whole game’s just been kicking,” Fittler said on Wide World of Sports’ Freddy and the Eighth’s Tips.
“But to see him do that, to strike late, that was awesome, that was a great sign for Eels fans.”
Both Fittler and Johns picked the Storm to win Saturday night’s clash narrowly, which would likely put them two wins behind eighth spot going into the crucial Origin period.
All 10 of Nine’s expert tipsters have picked Melbourne to continue their mini resurgence.
Scroll below for the current leaderboard and round 11 tips by all Nine’s expert tipsters!
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