TODAY is D-day for the Melbourne Storm. The minor premier has overcome all hurdles thrown in front of it this season, but Balmain legend Benny Elias yesterday said it must win today's grand final against Manly or face a bleak immediate future as history showed teams did not come back from consecutive grand final failures.

Elias readily admits he has a vested interest in adding pressure on the Storm — he is a business partner to Max Delmege, the financial saviour of the Sea Eagles.

But Elias was a member of the Tigers teams that lost grand finals in 1988 to Canterbury and 1989 in extra-time to Canberra. The second loss, when Balmain was favourite, cut deeply and the club did not recover until winning the premiership as Wests Tigers in 2005.

"It's almost impossible (to recover), I think history shows that," Elias said. "Melbourne has got to win this. They've really got to win this from a morale and mental point of view and for the game of rugby league in Melbourne.

"Everything is in their favour. They're building a new stadium down there, they're minor premiers, they've got a massive amount of representative players and this is the icing on the top.

"When they first won the premiership after their second year in the competition in 1999, Melbourne wasn't ready for that, but it is now slowly but surely getting ready for it and the win last week at the Telstra Dome was a bigger plus for the game of rugby league than it was them watching State of Origin down there last year."

Elias learned in 1989 that underdogs could do amazing things when there was nothing to lose.

"Manly's got nothing to lose, they're not expected to win, and when you're not expected to win and you're playing games like this you do extraordinary things, passes like you don't normally pass like Benji Marshall did in 2005 … you just leave nothing left in the fuel tank and Manly will do that. No matter how composed, how much experience, how much a favourite Melbourne is, Manly will be a side to be reckoned with because they will have nothing to lose. That is (Melbourne's) big problem."

He conceded the Storm, which has been based at the beachside suburb of Coogee since Wednesday and moved to Parramatta yesterday, looked comfortable all week despite the waves of controversy attempting to disrupt its preparation.

"They're going to be far more composed because they were there 12 months ago and you can see their composure and their coolness is a big asset for them," he said. "Preparation will be 98 per cent of this one and they seem very composed. They've got a cool customer at the helm in both their captain and their coach and that just reflects on to the other players in the side.

"You could see even at the grand final breakfast (on Thursday) the difference between the two. Just the body language — the quietly arrogant Melbourne Storm versus the very jittery 'wow this is like Christmas' Sea Eagles."

Storm prop Ben Cross trained yesterday individually and with the team and appears likely to take his place in the Melbourne line-up tonight.