The Melbourne Storm have made an emphatic statement of their premiership credentials to open the 2009 NRL finals series, thrashing Manly 40-12 at Etihad Stadium.

The home side has made each of the last three Grand Finals, and are playing in their seventh consecutive finals series, and it showed with an excellent performance where they dominated Manly from the opening whistle.

Billy Slater was the undoubted (although not the only) star of the show, scoring an incredible four tries to headline the banner performance, which made a mockery of the last time these two sides met in the finals- last year