St George Illawarra confident spine set to fire in South Sydney fixture
Dragons Den
New position: Gareth Widdop. Picture: AAP.
St George Illawarra players are confident the team's new-look spine will deliver an improved performance in their round two clash with South Sydney on Thursday night.
Coach Paul McGregor has stood by the squad that lost to North Queensland last week, with the only changes coming as a result of Tyson Frizell's testicle injury.
Blake Lawrie has moved into the starting lineup, while Josh Kerr is in line to make his NRL debut after moving on to the bench.
While cautioning the new combinations are a work in process, Dragons centre Tim Lafai said the team's attack should look a lot more fluent at Netstrata Jubilee Oval on Thursday.
"We've just got to go back to the drawing board," Lafai said. "The coaches and players believe in our spine. Corey [Norman] and Hunty, they've done awesome in trials and pre-season and I'm sure they'll come out firing this week."
Despite being just one round into the season, questions are already being asked of Gareth Widdop's move to fullback. Parramatta great Peter Sterling argued Widdop would be better served in the number six jersey, where he could play a bigger role in orchestrating the Dragons kicking game.
Lafai, however, defended his captain and said Widdop will grow into the role throughout the season.
"There's a reason why he's our fullback, he's trained there all pre-season and proved he's earned that spot and all the boys are behind it. We know what Gareth can bring in that fullback position, I'm sure he's going to show that this weekend."
The Dragons struggled to retain possession throughout much of
Saturday night's loss, completing just 74 per cent of their sets. They did, however, enjoy a period of sustained attack throughout the opening 10 minutes of the second half.
Despite peppering the Cowboys line, St George Illawarra were unable to crack North Queensland's defensive wall. Forward Jacob Host conceded the inability to score throughout that period ultimately proved costly, but he's confident with better execution, the points will follow.
Read more: Where will your team finish this NRL season?
"We need to stop turning the ball over," Host said. "In the first half we only had 40 per cent of possession. Then we came out in the second half and we did get the ball a fair bit on their line, but our execution let us down again.
"It's just little areas, little focus areas more than anything. It's nothing skill-wise, we just need to make sure when we are under the pump, we are able to go back to our processes, do what we do best, run hard and get good kicks away."
The Dragons will face a Rabbitohs team riding high after last week's 10-point victory over fierce rivals the Roosters.
Coach Wayne Bennett has named an unchanged lineup and, for 22-year-old Host, that means facing one of the players he looked up to growing up, John Sutton.
"I've watched him for a while. My mum was a Souths supporter, so Souths were on TV a little bit when I was younger, when she was watching the game.
"He's had a long career, been very successful, won a competition and played plenty of good football.
"He's someone who in a certain way I've looked up to, so it will be a good challenge for me to go up against him again, just like in the Charity Shield, so I'll have to put my best foot forward."
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au...nt-spine-set-to-fire-in-south-sydney-fixture/
