England's shock World Cup victory over the Wallabies inspired underdogs Melbourne Rebels to a gutsy 23-3 semi-final win over minor premiers Western Sydney Rams yesterday, creating the possibility that Victorian teams may scoop all four football premierships this year.

The Rebels head into Saturday's grand final against Central Coast Rays as rank outsiders, but they showed at Parramatta Stadium that they feed off the minnow status.

Tipped by most to finish last this year, Melbourne "did an England" against the star-studded Rams with relentless tackling and counter-rucking. Their clever backline play also exposed gaping holes in the Rams' outside defence.

Rebels captain David Croft milked the grand final underdogs tag for all it was worth. "I think the pressure is on [the Rays], they've got a squad of … run-on Super 14 players, and they probably should win, I think," he said.

"We will go there and give them a big shake-up and hopefully we come up trumps."

Melbourne coach Bill Millard revealed his team had taken heart from Australia's World Cup heartache, in which England managed to shut down a Wallabies side packed with game-breakers.

"We put a lot of work into our defence, they were trying to cover four or five very dangerous players and I thought they did it really well," Millard said.

"We spoke this morning about the English game and it was very similar, we didn't do anything special, we just out-enthused them and tried not to make too many mistakes."

Melbourne scored three tries - one each in the first half to lock Richard Stanford and outside-centre James Lew, and a Digby Ioane special in the 47th minute - and kept their line intact.

The final will be hosted by the Rays, who produced a sensational second-half fightback to beat Perth 27-19 on Saturday after trailing 16-0 at the break.

The Bluetongue Stadium fixture will give Melbourne a chance to atone for their woeful 55-7 capitulation the last time they played the Rays.

"They gave us a really big thumping and it was a wake-up call for the season, I really thank them for that thumping," Croft said. "They beat us by 50 points, there's certainly no expectations again.

"We'll just go there and play with the enthusiasm and commitment we've shown over the last two weeks."

For the Rams, poor ball handling, scrappy line-outs and the excellent counter-rucking from the Rebels left their attacking aces Kurtley Beale and Lachlan Turner with little space in which to weave any magic.

"I think we had a bit of a case of thinking about the final before we've got there, and we've really gone away from our structures that worked for us," Turner said. "They were just more desperate than we were, they were harder on the ball and faster to the ball than we were, and that proved to be the difference."

Ioane, in his fourth week back from a broken finger, was menacing with each touch and his try early in the second half showed why the Reds were so keen to recruit him for the next Super 14 season.

After receiving a flick pass from five-eighth Dan Kelly 20 metres out, Ioane glided through the defensive line before wrong-footing Beale with a sharp step to stroll over untouched.

"I'm just getting used to getting back into it," Ioane said. "Just holding the ball, you've got to hold the ball in this competition." That he and his teammates did.

On Saturday, this rag-tag bunch of NSW and Queensland players will attempt to hoist the inaugural ARC title for a city not that obsessed with rugby. As the Melbourne Storm have shown, however, they love winners down there. And as Ioane ominously said: "Everyone is beatable in the competition."