oh absolutely Paulo’s been huge this year and be a big loss, as is any starting 7
Both Parra and Manly are very good sides at full strength, however have squads that have been put together very differently. To me parramatta are a more solid team across the park, whereas manly are a side with a few big stars mixed in with journey men/fringe first grade quality.
Manly find it harder to cover these big stars as their cap is tied up in them so the quality drops fairly quickly after that. Whereas Parras cap is spread more evenly so that the first blokes called up aren’t Brendan Elliot/Jack Goweski quality
Fair enough!
I am not confident if we are missing Moses, Paulo, Matterson, and Ferguson:
* Field has done a good job filling in, but his kicking game is nowhere near Moses'
* Paulo is just so strong, and creative, and we can replace him with a workhorse, but nobody that can have his level of impact
* Matterson has been huge this year, but he is probably the most easily replaced - as gokd as Matterson has been, Marata Niukore cab replace him for a game, or two
* Ferguson hasn't scored any tries this season, but he has been immense coming out of our own end; George Jennings is not on the same level
I guess being an Eels fan, I've been conditioned to think the worst of my team for years, and years, and with a few players out, I start to think we are no chance.
But Manly are arguably worse off - Trbojevic is arguably one of the top fullbacks in the world, and Fonua-Blake has been on fire in 2020, and I'm not sure they have the depth that we do.
Still - as an Eels fan, I have been traumatised into thinking the worst!
