Sea Eagles V Bulldogs Preview
NRL
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Sea Eagles v Bulldogs
Brookvale Oval
Saturday 5.30pm
CAN Manly get themselves up for another big game after last weeks massive against-the-odds win over the Eels, or will the Bulldogs continue the point-scoring blitz they unleashed over the Dragons last Saturday?
This has the makings of a classic encounter at fortress Brookvale. While the Sea Eagles are in good form, having fallen only to the Storm over the past month, their trainers and physios will have been working overtime to ease the bumps and bruises from last weeks classic Heritage Round game, where they overcame a 7-1 penalty count and played the majority of the game with just one half-fit bench player (Mark Bryant).
Remarkably, winger Michael Bani is fit to play despite being medi-cabbed off Parramatta Stadium with a neck injury, while Luke Williamson has recovered from his concussion.
But Steve Menzies is sidelined for four weeks with a hamstring strain.
Steve Matai, who had a punishing game against the Eels (18 runs for 159 metres), will start at five-eighth as the Sea Eagles strive to get the best attacking options out of Jamie Lyon at centre (just seven runs for 44 metres last week).
The Bulldogs retain the starting 17 that swamped the Dragons in a sparkling six-try effort at ANZ Stadium.
Watch out Sea Eagles
The attacking Sonny Bill Williams provides in the pack is well documented, but last week the Bulldogs backline showed its now starting to click after a period of inactivity.
Steve Folkes would be looking for repeat performances from the likes of winger Matt Utai and centres Tim Winitana and Willie Tonga (12 runs for 170 metres).
Winitana had one of his best games at the top level (10 runs for 81 metres, two tries and a line break) while Utai was a handful in his return (12 runs for 122 metres, three tackle breaks and two tries). And with Luke Patten launching his regular counter-attacks in broken play, theres no room for complacency from the Sea Eagles.
Watch out Bulldogs: Its Brett Stewarts last chance to impress the Australian selectors before the side for the Centenary Test is announced on Sunday night, so hell be pumped. And hes a specialist at scoring tries at Brookvale.
The Bulldogs need to pay particular attention to his cross-field drift, where he shows-and-goes before piling on the acceleration to run around defenders. He did it a beauty last week, sprinting around the Eels outside backs to dive over in the corner classic Stewart.
Where it will be won: In the first 40. The Bulldogs have led at halftime on three occasions in 2008 and won all three games.
Meanwhile Manly have led on four occasions, losing to the Knights in golden point (round 2) after leading 6-2 at the break. So both sides are good at going on with the job.
But the Dogs job becomes tougher when you look at Manlys magnificent early scoring record at Brookvale Oval theyve scored the first try there in all but one game in their past 24 outings
and that was against the Storm last year.
The History: Played 107; Sea Eagles 56, Bulldogs 46, drawn 5. A mixed bag of stats: the honours are even at four games apiece the last eight games but the Sea Eagles have won three of the past four. But that advantage narrows when you consider they were thumped 27-8 at Brookvale the last time they met in round 15 last year.
Conclusion
A big game for fringe representative candidates. Matt Orford went a long way towards exorcising the demons of underperforming under pressure with a polished display under the pump against the Eels; hell be out to stamp his Origin credentials among the host of inexperienced talent currently touted ahead of him.
Luke Williamson, Josh Perry and Glenn Stewart are pushing for City /Country berths. And Patten gets his chance to prove he deserves the Country no.1 jersey ahead of Brett Stewart.
How the Sea Eagles fringe defenders contain SBW will go a long way to determining the victor: he ranks third in the NRL for offloads (16) and third for line-break assists (4) but hes capable of four line-break assists in this game alone.
This used to be a real mongrel battle up front in recent years, but with Willie Mason and Mark OMeley moving on, the Sea Eagles should have a bit more energy to weave their attacking magic out wide.
Match officials: Referee Tony Archer; Sideline Officials Gerard Sutton & Michael Jones; Video ref Steve Clark.
Televised: Live Foxsports 5.30pm.
* Statistics: NRL Stats.
