AAP | 05/09/08 | 0
Melbourne five-eighth Greg Inglis says his side won't watch the scoreboard against South Sydney on Sunday night with the minor premiership in mind.
Heading into the final round, the Storm trail frontrunners Manly by just eight for-and-against points.
Cronulla are also on 36 competition points but, barring the other two teams losing, are out of the minor premiership race due to their poor points differential.
While Melbourne will obviously know how many points they must score against the Rabbitohs at Olympic Park to win their third successive JJ Giltinan Shield, Inglis said it wouldn't be a focus.
"We'll know how many points we need to score retain it but we're not thinking about that," he said.
"If you think about the points you need to score in the match you won't get it."
Inglis said the side's priority was to regain some winning momentum heading into the finals rather than the scoreline, although a triple haul of minor premierships was definitely appealing.
"We need to get on a roll and build some momentum up going into the finals but in saying all that, the minor premiership is something that we want to defend," he said.
Inglis said the Storm let themselves down last weekend against Newcastle, who rode the emotion of a farewell to departing skipper Danny Buderus.
"We've spoken about what went wrong and I think the biggest thing that kept cropping up was believing in ourselves," Inglis said.
"We let ourselves down because we didn't complete our sets and put pressure on, so we didn't quite achieve what we wanted to."
While they still have finals to play, the Sunday night game will also be an emotional occasion as a tribute to the club's only remaining foundation player, Matt Geyer, who is retiring at the end of the season.
"It's definitely going to be a big emotional night, we had a night for Matty and there were already tears flowing," Inglis said.
"He's been here since the start and holds all kinds of records."
Souths have won eight from their last 12 starts, including a win over Manly and a narrow defeat to Cronulla.
Inglis said Souths were a proud club who wouldn't roll over for the defending champions.
"They want to finish the season on a high note and what better way than to go out than to defeat Melbourne Storm," he said.
"We know they're coming down with their heads switched on and they'll be tough but we've been training good all week and hopefully will put it into practice on the field."
If you think about the points you need to score in the match you won't get it
Greg Inglis
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