STORM v TITANS                                                        

Friday, Olympic Park, 7.35pm
Referee: Tony De Las Heras

The timing is awful for the Titans. After being flogged 46-4 by Canberra and finally dropping out of the top eight as they struggle along with key players out injured, they now face the toughest challenge in the NRL - playing away against the Storm - and they make the trip to Melbourne at a time when the Storm will be determined to get a win after losing on the road themselves against the Warriors.

The only disadvantage for the Storm is the quick turnaround for them after they played on Sunday. That is never easy to overcome, but no doubt their coach, Craig Bellamy, has not gone too hard on them this week with that in mind.

The Titans were trying hard to hang in there and recently got a shock win on the road against Sydney Roosters, but now they have lost two straight and the size of their loss to the Raiders suggested they had hit the wall and were unlikely to stage a recovery and make the finals. They are a spirited side normally and will no doubt try hard to raise an effort against the Storm, but there looks to be no chance of them holding Melbourne out for 80 minutes and it should end up being an easy win to the home side.

Storm: Billy Slater, Steve Turner, Matt Geyer, Israel Folau, Anthony Quinn, Greg Inglis, Cooper Cronk, Jeff Lima, Cameron Smith, Brett White, Michael Crocker, Ryan Hoffman, Dallas Johnson.          Interchange: Jeremy Smith, Adam Blair, Sika Manu, Antonio Kaufusi.

Titans: Preston Campbell, Jordan Rapana, Gavin Cooper, Brett Delaney, Jordan Atkins, Ashley Harrison, Josh Lewis, Brad Meyers, Clint Amos, Michael Hodgson, Anthony Laffranchi, Daniel Conn, Josh Graham.            Interchange: James Stosic, Will Mathews, Luke Swain, Luke O'Dwyer, Selasi Berdie. (1 to be omitted).