MELBOURNE Storm now has its target. It must beat South Sydney by more than 26 points tonight to claim its third consecutive minor premiership. But it will almost certainly have to do this without its gamebreaker Greg Inglis, who has left camp to be with family because of personal reasons.

Inglis was not at the Storm's final training session last night at Olympic Park as he flew to Sydney where a family member was in hospital because of illness.

Storm coach Craig Bellamy was expected to talk to Inglis last night but said before yesterday's training session that it was highly unlikely that Inglis would be available for today's game. Bellamy said Inglis' first consideration should be his family and the team would manage without him at Olympic Park tonight.

Inglis' absence would be a major blow to the Storm's aspirations of claiming this year's minor premiership after Manly yesterday unconvincingly beat Penrith 34-16. The Storm went into the final round equal on 36 points with Manly and Cronulla, but with a slightly lesser for-and-against percentage than the Sea Eagles.

Melbourne must win tonight to guarantee at least a second place.

The Storm, which already had to replace the injured Steve Turner on the right wing, will be forced into a further back-line reshuffle to cover Inglis' absence.

The Rabbitohs have their own concerns with Craig Wing having a quadriceps injury at training late last week. Wing will be given until this afternoon to prove his fitness for the Rabbitohs' final game of the season.

Bellamy said back-rower Ryan Hoffman would take his position today after returning from an ankle injury. "He needs to get a game under his belt … All the medical staff think he's fine, he's trained the way it was planned for him to train this week and he's come through fine so he'll be fine to play."

Meanwhile, Matt Geyer said he did not want the hype surrounding his final home-and-away game for the Storm today to distract the team.

"We can use the emotion of the night," Geyer said. "At the club we try and do things with games that mean a little bit more for someone. We try and go that extra mile for a player who might have a bit more motivation.

"There should be a lot of emotion but I think it will be important that we channel that emotion and don't come out of the gates stupid. Teams are too good now. You can't just blow a team away by being emotional and going a hundred miles an hour because the only thing you'll do is burn yourself out and they'll get away with it."