Prince full of praise for his new mate as Tigers roar home
Wests Tigers halfback Scott Prince has played just two games with Benji Marshall as his scrumbase partner but he already feels the pair have a unique understanding.
Prince and Marshall, who first teamed up to sink Canberra three weeks ago, were again the inspiration behind the Tigers' 33-6 demolition of Parramatta yesterday in a performance that only helped to increase the pressure on Eels coach Brian Smith.
Between them, the pair were involved in five of their six tries as the Tigers romped to their third successive win, before a record crowd at Leichhardt Oval for the joint venture outfit.
"I just feel comfortable with Benji," Prince said. "He's a good player and that obviously helps, but we'd never played together as a halfback/five-eighth before the Canberra game and I remember thinking after about 20 minutes that we already had a combination going.
"I can't think of that happening before. At the Cowboys I started to feel comfortable with Nathan Fien when he was halfback and I was five-eighth but that was after about six months. It just feels like we're on the same level. If he wants the ball I give it to him and we just feed off each other.
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"It's going to get better the more we play together but at the moment there's a lot of things working in attack for us and we look good when we do it."
Having Prince, the Queensland Origin halfback, and the player regarded as the game's next big thing in Marshall calling the shots was a real boost to the team's confidence, according to fullback Brett Hodgson.
Despite having played only 10 first grade games, Marshall has already been forced to announce whether he wants to represent Australia or New Zealand, and Hodgson has little doubt he will play for the Kiwis soon.
"When you know you've got a brilliant player come into the side it lifts you and things happen around him," Hodgson said of 19-year-old Marshall. "I thought Princey did really well backing up from Origin but Benji was outstanding. He was probably the major reason we won the game. He's probably just got to learn that he's not going to score every time he gets the ball."
For a brief while, however, that seemed a reality as the Tigers took just 56 seconds to give the 18,883 crowd their first taste of what lay in store when winger Luke Covell finished off a movement that went almost from one length of the field to the other and then side to side.
Shane Elford was the main instigator, punching his way through the right-side defence deep inside the Tigers half before linking with Hodgson, who flung the ball inside for Prince to pick up, perform a run-around with Darren Senter and put Covell over in the left corner.
Hodgson's conversion and a fifth-minute penalty goal gave the Tigers an 8-0 lead before the Eels had even touched the ball. When they did, their first set of tackles gained little ground and ended with hooker James Webster caught in possession on the last tackle.
Worse was to come for Parramatta when Covell grabbed his second try off a Marshall grubber in just the ninth minute and five-eighth Michael Witt kicked the ball out on the full from the restart.
Despite the Tigers taking another half-hour to post their next try, scored by Marshall off a cross-field kick by Prince, the Eels were never in the contest.
Their best scoring chance came just after half-time when English halfback Chris Thorman sliced through the defence in the 43rd minute only to drop the ball over the try line, and when Marshall put Covell over five minutes later the home side led 24-0.
A Prince field goal midway through the second half after hooker Robert Mears won a scrum against the feed extended the Tigers' lead further before Witt crossed for Parramatta's sole try 12 minutes before full-time.
"We were really determined to have a quality win if we could and at the end of the day it didn't really worry me how many points we scored, it was how many we had scored against us," Tigers coach Tim Sheens said.
"We're trying to develop a pride in defence within our club. We probably could have scored a lot more points but they were trying things, I suppose, and things seemed to be flowing our way.
"They were in quicksand, really, they were up and down on the spot. They seemed to drop the ball every time we turned it over. I think our guys just got adventurous and were trying things they probably wouldn't try if we were playing say, Brisbane, in Brisbane."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/30/1085855438320.html
