The Silvertails Preview: Round 8 The Manly Sea Eagles v The Newcastle Knights

[Ben]

Why not start matthew wright???

Personally I think he will be there for the cows game as he gets his head around new structure.

 

[Technical Coach]

The risk with Manly this year is opposite to previous years.

The last 2-3 years it has been the back line and back row making up for all the weakness in the front row, polished well structured mature attack getting points when it mattered from the limited times we gained good field position.In the end it wasn't enough and the enthusiasm levels of having too much responsibility and having to do too much grinding/inspirational work took it's toll on the back line and halves.

Now we are slowly building up/replenishing our forward depth plus adding a power element and now it is the forwards who have to work hard/overtime and compete as we don't have the ball playing halves or mature attacking structures to get us out of trouble with points on demand.

The risk is the forwards don't see the rewards for all their efforts of matching more powerful forward packs and start to lose the enthusiasm to compete. The intensity starts to drop off because they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel for all their efforts due to a lack of points at the end of it.

This game is season defining, a good comfortable win will see Manly gain confidence they can beat and put away teams in the bottom 8 which will lay the platform for the odd win against teams in the top 8.

We lose the loss of self belief and realization that this year is more a rebuilding training up season will gather momentum and we start to struggle holding onto a 50/50 win loss ratio.

If Manly put the same forward effort as they did against Parramatta it should be enough to scrape a win even with our poor attacking structures.

I fear if Newcastle are not ravashed by injury and we don't turn up to compete Manly will lose---we can't afford not to compete in the forwards now with a lack of points in us at the moment.

Good value in a full strength Newcastle if you are a betting man.

 

[Ben]

Rumour on NRL tonight is that DCE will play and Api will move to hooker with Parcell dropping out, or to the bench. I would hate to see Parcell drop out unless he is still injured.

I hope this doesn't happen. Parcell has been great for us and is still only warming to the task. I really think he will come into his own in a few weeks. You can see glimpses of it with his support play and great service.
Really Api needs to go to 5/8. Barrett needs to swallow his pride and make that call