I'm not going to say Melbourne can't win the competition from here - they're still in the thick of the battle to make the top four and they've still got the best coach in the NRL, Craig Bellamy, and the best player, Cameron Munster.

And, at the end of the day, they're still the Melbourne Storm, the club that for a long time now has regularly set the benchmark, or close to it, for consistent quality of performance.

All of those factors are why, despite their undeniable problems when it comes to disappointing performances of late and a growing injury list that has most recently claimed one of their genuine superstar players in Ryan Papenhuyzen, they are still rated second in premiership betting.

But there is no way I could tip them to win it from here. It just looks too much like it has gotten too hard - even for them.

Despite still being second favourites the Storm have eased significantly in the betting, but not anywhere near to the extent your average club would have had it been in the same place on the competition table and experiencing similar issues.

Bookmakers will always remain wary of Melbourne until results say they no longer have to be.

Because they are the Storm and we expect them to hold up no matter what, we tend not to take as much notice of the negatives they may have to deal with, but the fact is they have been slammed by long-term injuries this season.

Prop and co-captain Christian Welch went down for the season in the very first round with an Achilles tendon injury. So, too, did winger George Jennings, with a torn ACL. Centre Reimis Smith (torn pectoral muscle) is also gone for the year and winger Xavier Coates is still out with a syndesmosis injury sustained while playing for Queensland in State of Origin I.

There have also been little pockets of injuries including hooker Harry Grant missing the first three rounds.

And then there was the club's other hooker and utility forward Brandon Smith's moment of stupidity when he abused a referee and was suspended for three games. He's still got two of those to go. Papenhuyzen joined the rest-of-the-season outs when he fractured his kneecap against Canberra last weekend.

Suddenly, after looking like the lock that they normally are for the top four and the most likely second placegetters at the end of the 25 rounds behind the Panthers, three straight losses have left Melbourne in an extremely vulnerable position.

And that makes their round-19 game against South Sydney at Accor Stadium in Sydney on Saturday night a fascinating encounter. Before the round began, the Storm were in fourth place on 24 points, the same number as both fifth-placed Brisbane and sixth-placed Parramatta, but ahead of both of them on points differential.

If they lose to the Rabbitohs they will drop out of the top four, replaced by the winner of last night's Parramatta-Brisbane match, which was going ahead after the writing of this column.

At the same as the Storm have eased in the betting, Penrith, the defending premiers and runaway competition leaders, have firmed significantly from their already prohibitive quote and are now clear hot favourites to make it back-to-back titles.

Can any other team stop them from winning two in a row? Yes, of course it can happen. If you make the top four and catch lightning in a bottle during the finals series, then anything is possible, but it is a huge ask.

The Panthers are an even better team now than when they beat the Storm 10-6 in last year's preliminary finals and then knocked over Souths 14-12 in the grand final. They're reinforced with the knowledge of how to emerge from the biggest and tightest games as winners.

If they played these games on paper, it would be all over already, but fortunately they don't. So where do we find the answer when we look to that question of who, if anyone, can stop them.

I was looking to last night's game with enormous interest. I thought it was going to tell a lot, but more about the Broncos than the Eels. The Broncos have many exciting young players to go with their inexperienced core. They're going to be a better team next year, but they've got shock value this year if they can get themselves into a good position to challenge heading into the finals. They're my dangerous long-shots.

Parramatta, I don't deny they're capable of winning the premiership, but I don't trust them to be able to produce the necessary level of consistency over four weeks of a finals series.

I respect Cronulla enormously, but I don't think they're quite good enough to win it. Their game against Penrith at BlueBet Stadium on Saturday night is another intriguing contest we've got in this round.

The other team I think can do something, apart from my Broncos roughies, are North Queensland.

Coach Todd Payten has done a stellar job with them and surely they will win at home against Wests Tigers on Sunday to strengthen their hold on second place.

It's very hard to go past Penrith, but the NRL is never really a one-horse race. We've seen huge upsets in finals matches before. The fat lady probably fancies the Panthers as well, but she's been around too long and is too smart to start singing yet.