Just four teams remain with spots in the 2020 NRL Grand Final on the line this week.

After digging into the attack and defence of the Canberra Raiders and South Sydney Rabbitohs before Week 2, it's now time to look at where the Melbourne Storm and Penrith Panthers have scored and conceded tries this season.

Spoiler: They've both scored a lot and conceded very few.

Melbourne Storm v Canberra Raiders

Only three players touch the ball more times per game than Cameron Smith's 116.7 touches. With them, Smith plays a crucial role in the Melbourne Storm's third-ranked 27.1 points per game. They've scored 97 tries in 2020: 39 triesdown the left, 21 through the middle and 37 down the right side. 

Split relatively evenly across the field, Melbourne have proven they can score from anywhere. Having arguably the greatest player of all time touch the ball over 100 times per game allows you to do that.

While Cameron Munster is a menace down the left side for his four tries, eight try assists and seven line break assists and Jahrome Hughes is having a career year for his seven tries, 13 try assists and six line break assists, it's so often Smith creating the opportunities earlier in the set or with a perfect pass out of dummy half. 

His long pass here a tackle before the try is what strips the Knights for numbers and gives Suliasi Vunivalu the opportunity step inside a desperately scrambling Edrick Lee to score:

Later in the same game, Smith left his fingerprints all over a perfect set that ended with Tino Fa'asuamaleaui falling over from close range.

It starts with Smith getting out from dummy half following a repeat set call. Note Jacob Saifiti and David Klemmer retreating from the first tackle and Andrew McCullough involved in the next. Smith then engages McCullough out of dummy half before Ryan Papenhuyzen runs at Tim Glasby. Keep note of Glasby from here too:

Smith engages Glasby at marker before Munster absorbs a tackle made by Glasby, Saifiti and McCullough. Papenhuyzen is then again involved as he forces another effort out of Klemmer on 3rd tackle:

Smith then goes wide, but not before digging into Saifiti at the line.

It's now that the efforts of the four prior tackles pay dividends. McCullough, Saifiti, Klemmer and Glasby are defending in the middle. They're gassed and standing too wide from the ruck. Forced to come off their line at an angle to close up the space, Smith has his pick with two huge human beings in Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Fa'asuamaleaui running into gaping holes five metres from the line. The tired defence is too slow and Fa'asuamaleaui goes over all too easily:

Smith can do this from all over the field. He has the spine in 2020 to create for themselves, too. That's the biggest difference to last season and why the Stats Insider Futures Modelhas Melbourne just behind Penrith at 31.6% to win the premiership.

The Raiders, on the other hand, have clear biases to where they score tries. As noted last week, they led the NRL in tries through the middle with 25 after Week 1. Josh Papalii, George Williams and Joseph Tapine all rated a mention. All three of them scored a try in the middle of the field while Jack Wighton also pounced on a centre-field grubber for all four of Canberra's tries in their 22-18 Week 2 win coming in the middle.

With 43% of Canberra's tries coming down Wighton's left edge and an NRL-high 33% through the middle, Melbourne have a fair idea of where they'll be forced to defend on Friday night. 

Positively for Melbourne, no side has conceded fewer tries through the middle than their seven this season. It's an area they have been strong in all season and concede the second-fewest points at 14.3 per game on the back of it.

Melbourne's right centre position has seen a handful of different players named there throughout the year. Paul Momirovski, Tom Eisenhuth and Marion Seve have all been named there, but it's Brenko Lee that has secured the jersey through the finals and is playing well enough to be in the Queensland State of Origin conversation. 

The turnover in faces filling a key defensive position goes some way to explaining the NRL-high 51% of tries coming through Melbourne's right side. Although, the 25 total tries is still the third-fewest in the competition behind Penrith (16) and Canberra (24). The 17 they've allowed through the left is the fewest of all 16 teams on that side of the field and the second-best defensive edge in the competition.

Unlike their attack, Canberra's defensive splits are even across the board. There isn't a major weakness in their defensive line. Allowing only 16.1 points to be scored through them per game, the Raiders rank third in defence heading into Week 3 of the finals.

Penrith Panthers v South Sydney Rabbitohs

The Penrith Panthers have been unstoppable in 2020. They're the Stats Insider Futures Model's 34% favourite for the premiership and it comes on the back of a top tier attack and NRL-best defence.

Penrith score 27 points per game to rank 4th in the NRL Although, just 0.5 points per game separates Penrith at 4th and South Sydney at 1st. As the Try Location Analysis above shows, it's down the left edge that they thrive most.

No team has scored more tries down the left edge than Penrith's 50 this season. While the defence knows the Panthers attack is left-leaning and they can spend all week planning for it, the variety makes it impossible to totally shut down.

Jarome Luai is at the forefront of it all. The 23-year-old has been incredible this season to have seven tries, 22 try assists, 18 line break assists and 15 offloads in 21 games. He's picked up some of Nathan Cleary's tempoed runs and causes the defence havoc as a triple-threat option by holding the ball in two hands. While Luai can beat the defence with a pass, kick or run, those on the outside of him draw plenty of attention themselves.

Viliame Kikau, in particular.

Less for the big Fijian has meant more for Penrith. He's only touched the ball 13.1 times per game in 2020, down from 17.2 touches per game last season. The Panthers attack looked predictable at times in 2019.

A review of the Panthers 2019 season: "The Panthers have failed to adapt to much beyond giving the ball to Viliame Kikau and watching him go. When the defence can safely assume the ball will end up in Kikau's hands when the ball shifts to the left, they can get two or three in the tackle."

That hasn't been the case in 2020 with the Panthers using Kikau in different ways to not only use his size and power to score, but to open up opportunities out wide.

Isolating Kikau onto an opposition half is always going to be something the Panthers look to do in attack, just as they did against the Sharks earlier in the year:

With runs like that in the minds of a defence, Kikau attracts plenty of attention as a decoy. Joey Leilua only had eyes for Kikau on this run:

More recently, Penrith used Kikau out the back as a ball-player. This try against the Roosters in Week 1 is a beauty:

It's the sensational form of Luai and changes to how the Panthers use Kikau in attack that have allowed Stephen Crichton to pile up 16 tries while Josh Mansour has found 11 on the wing.

The Panthers can do all of that and we've barely mentioned the favourite for the Dally M and Stats Insider's Player of the Year, Nathan Cleary. We talked a lot about his role in the attack earlier in the year, though.

Meanwhile, the South Sydney Rabbitohs are just one try behind the Panthers left edge with 49 this season. They also run with a left-leaning attack. However, as covered before they hung 38 points on the Eels in Week 2 of the Finals, the Rabbitohs have started to explore down the right side more often. They scored another four down that side of the field last week and now lead the NRL in scoring at 27.5 points per game.

Defensively, the Panthers are the best team in the business. They concede just 12.7 points per game. After allowing the Roosters to score early in Round 1, the Panthers didn't concede a point in the opening 20 minutes of a match until David Nofoaluma crossed the line eight minutes into their Round 16 clash with the Tigers.

Cleary is one of the best defensive halves in the competition and has put up a wall on the right edge beside Liam Martin. No team has conceded fewer tries than Penrith's 16 on the right side. In fact, it's the best defensive edge in the NRL. 

With Isaah Yeo, James Fisher-Harris, James Tamou and the bevy of excellent bench-rotation middles the Panthers circulate on and off the field, they've allowed only ten tries through the middle after conceding 25 in the same area last season.

While the Rabbitohs attack can score at will, their defence concedes the sixth-most points in the competition at 18 points per game. They've allowed the opposition to score 20+ points in five of their last six games.

Both the Storm and Panthers have had a week off to rest and recover while the Raiders and Rabbitohs plan for their 21st consecutive week of footy. While it wouldn't surprise to see either of the underdogs get up just as the Raiders did last week, the favourites are well-positioned to come into these games firing. The home team has won each of the last four preliminary finals and seven of the last eight.

With Smith commanding Melbourne's attack and Penrith's NRL-best defence, the expectation is for these two to meet in ght Grand Final on October 25.

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