I think Storm are deservedly about the hottest favourites I've seen in the NRL era. But they are not certainties. They have about a 50% record against the top 5, and they need to win 3 in a row to win the competition. As I said last week, they are easily the most likely to win, but if I had to say which result out of Storm winning or Storm not winning is most likely, I'd still say the latter is slight favourite.
Which means all the rest of us useless, out of form teams are scrabbling to be part of that other result. We may only be about 20% or so likely to be the other, and Roosters, Eels, and Broncos would make up most the rest of that, Panthers probably close to us, but that is still some chance.
Obviously our attack has been down all year, our penalties and handling are way off, and lately our defense is poor. But a few times this year we have shut out good sides, and a few times we have piled on points against good teams, so we are capable.
Tonight's result really hurts, and despite just losing and having some poor luck, we also stunk it up at times when we really needed to do better. And we could easily go in to the finals in 5th or 6th and lose to the Dragons/Sea Eagles first round, and bow out earlier, as is the tradition for premiers.
But we also might win that final. Then we are the same boat as last year at the start of the finals, in poor form, but needing three finals wins in a row to win. So it is still a possibility.