Raiders wary of Eels
The CFMEU Canberra Raiders will head into Saturday nights match against the Eels at Parramatta Stadium with a renewed enthusiasm, following Monday night’s big 48-18 win over the Newcastle Knights at Canberra Stadium.
After scoring three tries in the win William Zillman said the effort across the park on Monday night should be applauded, and the team would look to emulate that form this weekend.
"It’s really good to get our first win on the board and play that well as a team," Zillman said. "Parramatta is a good team and it could be anyone’s game on the night, but we know we’re up to it and we will be looking for another good performance."
Man of the match from Monday night Todd Carney said it was good to finally reap the rewards of a good team effort, and said the combinations within the side were starting to come together.
“We spoke earlier in the week that if we played eighty minutes and played well we would get a win up and we showed that on Monday night,” Carney said. “My combination with Zilly is slowly getting there as is my combination with Dobbo, it worked well last night and it’s something we will keep working on through the year.”
Raiders Coach Neil Henry named a near unchanged line-up for this week’s clash, with David Howell the only inclusion to Monday night’s winning squad.
Henry said Marshall Chalk’s versatility had brought forward the change to the team, and mentioned the return of some other Raiders this weekend.
“David is in the centres this weekend, Marshall Chalk is a good utility for us so he moves to the bench and we will have a look at the combinations a bit later in the week.” Henry said. “We have Glen Turner possibly coming back this weekend, Tom Learoyd-Lahrs is making his comeback through Premier League, Michael Weyman may be available to play and we won’t know on them until the end of the week.”
Henry said the Raiders would not get too carried away with their first win of the season, and expects a tight contest against the Eels on Saturday night.
“There are no guarantees from week to week but if we can turn up and play with the same attitude then we will test Parramatta,” he said. “They’re coming off the back of their first win at home and they had a good crowd there last week, and they have some momentum back with Nathan Hindmarsh playing some good football, so we will need to turn up and be on our game.”
http://www.raiders.com.au/www/detail_desc.php?news_id=130
i see this as a real test this game and also a good indication of if howell is a protected species
