Sea Eagles v Warriors - Team Line-ups

  • We had an issue with background services between march 10th and 15th or there about. This meant the payment services were not linking to automatic upgrades. If you paid for premium membership and are still seeing ads please let me know and the email you used against PayPal and I cam manually verify and upgrade your account.
Ropati in doubt

| March 26, 2008
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/spor...5006066,00.html

IN-form New Zealand centre Jerome Ropati is in doubt for Warriors' NRL clash with Manly on Monday due to an ankle injury.

Coach Ivan Cleary included Ropati in his team to play the Sea Eagles at Brookvale Oval but admitted he was a doubtful starter for the match.

Ropati, 23, lasted 68 minutes of Sunday's 30-16 win against Parramatta in Auckland before leaving the field.

"While the injury doesn't seem to be as bad as we first thought, Jerome is still in doubt this week,'' Cleary said. "We're hopeful his ankle will come right quickly but whether that will be in time for this game remains to be seen.''

Cleary named an unchanged 17, with Lance Hohaia remaining at fullback after an impressive effort against the Eels when called in as a late replacement for Aidan Kirk.

With Ropati in doubt, Cleary named veteran backrower Wairangi Koopu as 18th man for the trip to Sydney. Koopu hasn't yet added to his career tally of 153 NRL appearances after being omitted from the squad for the first two matches of the season.
Cleary will be hoping for a speedy recovery from Ropati, with his two most influential players Steve Price (hamstring) and Wade McKinnon (knee) already sidelined with injury.
 
as long as williamson is the side we are chance of beating  anyone  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
 
Sea Eagles V Warriors Preview
NRL
http://nrl.com/News/Latest/tabid/10244/default.aspx?id=50241Sea Eagles v Warriors

Brookvale Oval
Monday 7.00pm
THREE weeks in and this looms as a crunch game for both sides. The Sea Eagles have all the pressure on them: they’re yet to open their account and their premiership odds will blow like the wind if they trudge away from this one with their second ’08 home defeat at the once-feared ‘Fortress Brookvale’ and zero competition points on the board.
Likewise Warriors’ coach Ivan Cleary knows the importance of this game: his side need to win to stay in touch with the upper echelon of contenders but, more importantly, they have the perfect opportunity to plunge a dagger into the already wounded Sea Eagles – and perhaps maim them for good for season 2008.
Manly have lost in close calls twice so far – 16-10 to competition front-runners Cronulla and a gut-wrenching golden-point loss to the Knights last week.
Skipper Matt Orford is still struggling for attacking cohesion with his five-eighth Jamie Lyon and while fans’ patience is wearing thin they are too talented a duo to remain firing on six of their potential eight cylinders.
The Warriors were well in their first-round match with the Storm in Melbourne before they comically kicked-off dead three times in the second half to effectively strangle themselves, then muscled-up to climb over the top of the Eels 30-16 in Auckland.
The Sea Eagles have named the same team from last week – although expect either Glenn Hall or Jack Afamasaga to join the bench should Josh Perry fail to beat his head-butting rap from last week.
Warriors’ captain Steve Price remains sidelined with an upper hamstring complaint. 
Watch out Sea Eagles!: Warriors’ winger Manu Vatuvei is without doubt the most enigmatic player in the NRL, dotting his ledger with various pros and cons each game.
The pros come in the form of block-busting busts and excellent finishes – already he tops the NRL with four tries from two doubles, plus he heads the line-breaks category with five (two of them off kick-returns, so Orford will need to be wary). His 348 metres gained (average 174 a game) ranks him fourth in the league, and he’s also fourth for kick-return metres with 122. But the ‘cons’ column is littered with handling errors – especially off kicks both along the ground and in the air. If he can keep his errors down the Sea Eagles will be made to pay. 
Watch out Warriors!: The Sea Eagles may be just a microsecond away from hitting their straps. Their stats aren’t all that bad – they dominated possession against the Sharks with 31 completed sets to 21 but still lost. Newcastle had six more sets last week yet Manly still led deep in the second half.
Their 27 errors from two rounds places them middle of the pack, yet they sit with the woeful Penrith as the lowest try-scorers with four. The key is Lyon – he’s run the ball 16 times but has been tackled on 14 occasions; as a five-eighth he needs to make some line breaks or line-break assists. Expect him to not die with the ball as much, starting this week.
Where it will be won: That’s an easy one: discipline. Both sides are testing the patience of the refs, with the Warriors the equal worst offenders in the league with the Cowboys on a massive 20 penalties conceded from just two games. The Sea Eagles rank third-worst on 19 penalties. But that stat is more ominous for the visitors, should the Brookvale faithful rally behind their side and earn them some good old-fashioned “home-ground advantage”.
A final word on penalties: the Sea Eagles have been pinged three times in attack so far – that shows how out of sync they are. But that could change in an instant…
The History: Played 13; Sea Eagles 7, Warriors 6. The honours are even four games apiece over their last eight encounters – although the past two games at Brookvale have been cliff-hangers; the Warriors won 22-20 in 2005 and the local side scraped home 13-10 last year. Worryingly for the home side, their opponents scored their biggest ever head-to-head win over Manly – 36-10 – at Brookvale in 1999.
Conclusion: It could be that the Sea Eagles have been trying too hard to date. Obviously they are frustrated at their inability to pile on the points, and they are perhaps forcing the issue. There’s certainly nothing wrong with their ability to generate offloads – they’ve made 35 to rank second to the Roosters (36). But they haven’t been able to take advantage of this play, with errors and good opposition defence keeping their total line breaks to a paltry three (the Warriors have nine).
It could well be their season hinges on this game. As we saw with the Dragons over the Titans last week, that sort of motivation can transform Minis into Ferraris. One last chance for the home side.
Match Officials: Referee – Sean Hampstead; Sideline Officials – Steve Chiddy & Russell Turner; Video Ref – Steve Clark.
Televised: Fox Sports 2 – Live 7.00pm (AEDT).
* Statistics NRL Stats
 
The offload thing has me puzzled.  Cuthbo offloads in ridiculous situations when the opposition is all over him, and lately all forwards seem to be throwing the pill to others in no better situation, usually when running across field.  It's a coaching problem which leads to errors.  Our forwards need to be told to run hard and straight, hold onto the ball and let the backs do their thing.  To beat the warriors you need to move up quickly, force errors or hurried play and get numbers into the tackles, limit their offloads.  We'll win, but close.  Stewey has to fire, be elusive and get around their big backs.
 
I've got to say, our stats really haven't been that bad.

In fact, if I were given them without knowing the scores I'd say we'd knocked up so pretty decent wins.

It just a pitty that with all those stats we can attack. It has to be blamed on the halves. And bell. What other centre in the game gets the ball and cramps the entire team with a run back infield 100% of the time they get the ball?
 
toovs link said:
as long as williamson is the side we are chance of beating  anyone  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
He's definately been of his game the first 2 weeks looks lethargic & has dropped ball a few times unlike willo.
 
Lyon is a centre, he is a ball runner not a ball player. 5/8 needs to be ball player. Can someone break out the crayons and draw des Hasler a picture so that evn he can understand!
 
Not sure if its been mentioned, but Manly are $1.50 and the Warriors are at $2.50 for this game. Put some money on the Warriors - its worth losing it to see a Manly victory.
 
Scuba that is actually a very good point.

I might throw a sneaky $20, not much but worth it either way
 
Dan link said:
Lyon is a centre, he is a ball runner not a ball player. 5/8 needs to be ball player. Can someone break out the crayons and draw des Hasler a picture so that evn he can understand!
Not sure if it is all Dessies fault, saw an interview on Fox Sport last night where Lyon was given every chance to say he prefered centre to 5/8 and he seemed keen on staying at 5/8. If he kept pestering Des for a move back to the centres I am sure he would be accommodated.

My point is as a coach do you piss off your one of your big names by playing him where he does not want to be played, may be more politics involved than we think.
 
of course you do. You do what is for the greater good of the team, even more so in a professional sport.

It isn't about making everyone happy and giving them what they want, it is about putting together a winning combination
 
Problem with that theory is that all the 'eggs have been put in the Lyon basket". Despite a few of the ridiculous ideas thrown around here, there is no other obvious candidate for 5/8 with Burns gone. Beaver, Brett Stewart, Glenn Stewart etc are not 5/8s and our Reserve Grade one is a winger - Caramello Koala!!! Some are even advocating a 16 year with potential who has played 2 games of SG Ball.

Bottom line is that Lyon is a gap-runner, not a ball player and he and Orford are not complementing each other at present. It may click but I can't see that Des has too many other options than to stick with what we have now.
 
Ropati ruled out today, Koopu in and Shortland 18th man

The key for this game in my view in the kicking game and the kick chase.

Manu is an obvious kicking target, so bomb away, but the chase has to be top notch, or he and Hohaia could both carve us up with ease and have us on the back foot from the 1st play
 
That's a fair boost in my opinion. Roparti's been in very good touch in the first two games. He was the Warriors best by a long margin in the loss to the Storm.
 
Canteen Worker link said:
Problem with that theory is that all the 'eggs have been put in the Lyon basket\". Despite a few of the ridiculous ideas thrown around here, there is no other obvious candidate for 5/8 with Burns gone. Beaver, Brett Stewart, Glenn Stewart etc are not 5/8s and our Reserve Grade one is a winger - Caramello Koala!!! Some are even advocating a 16 year with potential who has played 2 games of SG Ball.

Bottom line is that Lyon is a gap-runner, not a ball player and he and Orford are not complementing each other at present. It may click but I can't see that Des has too many other options than to stick with what we have now.

I agree, we don't have many other options and if it has taken over 1 year to "click" (not including the off seasons) then i don't see it happening very soon. And it is obvious even the coach doesn't think its working due to the fact we were looking to buy Carney.

On the note of Ballin i rate him greatly as a Dummy half but not a halfback/dummy half as Monas was playing. Ballins feed to the halves has been quite good but SOMEONE need to be able to kick instead of Orford

Orford's short kicking game is great but his long distance kicking game honestly give it to someone else, we saw Brett Steweart Kicking it further than his kicks.
 
tbh Lyon did not play a great deal of 5/8 last year, or did he?  I thought there were lots of injuries and he spent most of his time in the centres.  I think he is not a 5/8 but we only have Menzies as another option and he is not too much better imo, it is not going to sort us out if he is there over Lyon anyway!!!!
 
He is listed as starting 15 games at 5/8. That's a fair percentage.

And even if he was playing in the centres for most of the year (which I don't think he was) he still had a very ordinary year so the position he played in is irrelevant.
 
Team P W L PD Pts
3 3 0 48 6
4 3 1 28 6
3 2 1 10 6
4 2 2 39 4
3 2 1 28 4
3 2 1 15 4
3 2 1 14 4
2 1 1 13 4
2 1 1 6 4
3 2 1 -3 4
3 1 2 0 2
3 1 2 -5 2
3 1 2 -15 2
3 1 2 -22 2
3 1 2 -36 2
2 0 2 -56 2
3 0 3 -64 0
Back
Top Bottom