The Silvertails Preview: Round 2 The Manly Sea Eagles v The West Tigers

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lsz

First Grader
Staff member
by @KeithSheldon

So I want to apologize for not doing this round one, but to say that this wasn’t scheduled last minute is a bigger lie than saying the Titans have realistic premiership chances this year. I am planning on writing a preview for each and every Manly match for the rest of the season.


These are two teams whose round one results are the complete opposite of each other. Manly are coming off of a soul crushing loss, they were favourites to win their game but played like the ball was burning their hands and had no organisation offensively. They just looked lost out there. They completely capitulated. The halves sucked and everywhere else wasn’t much better. This week the pressure has to be on these players, they were hyped up so much in the pre-season so that loss must have stung.

However the Tigers are coming off of an unprecedented win. Despite missing Farrah and Ballin (their number one and two choice dummy-halves) as well as Luke Brooks they comprehensively outplayed the completely stacked, albeit schizophrenic Warriors. They may have dropped off a cliff in the second half, but Mitchell Moses and James Tedesco both played out of their skin. For them this week is a question of whether or not they can do it again against Manly, another side that is very good on paper.


Team Lists:

The West Tigers
1. James Tedesco
2. David Nofoaluma
3. Tim Simona
4. Kevin Naiqama
5. Jordan Rankin
6. Mitchell Moses
7. Luke Brooks
8. Aaron Woods ©
9. Dene Halatau
10. Tim Grant
11. Curtis Sironen
12. Chris Lawrence
13. Sauaso Sue
14. Kyle Lovett
15. Joshua Aloiai
16. Ava Seumanufagai
17. Manaia Cherrington
18. Michael Chee-Kam
Coach: Jason Taylor

The Manly Sea Eagles
1. Tom Trbojevic
2. Jorge Taufua
3. Jamie Lyon
4. Steve Matai
5. Brayden Wiliame
6. Dylan Walker
7. Daly Cherry-Evans
8. Josh Starling
9. Apisai Koroisau
10. Nate Myles
11. Lewis Brown
12. Martin Taupau
13. Jake Trbojevic
14. Matt Parcell
15. Nathan Green
16. Brenton Lawrence
17. Siosaia Vave
Coach: Trent Barrett


Few changes to both sides here from their round one line ups. For the Tigers Dene Halatau’s return from suspension means Kyle Lovett moves onto the interchange bench and Jack Buchanan drops out of the side whilst Luke Brooks’s return pushes Jack Littlejohn out of the side.

For Manly, Darcy Lussick and Blake Leary are both dropped from the bench in favour of Josh Starling and Brenton Lawrence, with Lawrence making his first appearance in the top grade since round one 2015, over 12 months ago now. Jake Trbojevic is moved to lock, pushing Martin Taupau into the second row, Nathan Green to the interchange bench and Josh Starling into a starting prop jumper.


Analysis:

There are going to be some interesting match ups in this game, most notably I think will be Tedesco v Trbojevic. The superstar in the making is up against a genuine, superstar fullback. As much potential as Trbojevic has, I think Tedesco has the edge over him at this point in their respective careers. Trbojevic may be one of the fastest players I have ever seen but Tedesco is as evasive as a seasoned politician being asked a simple question. His ability to burst out of tackles as well as his natural speed will make him hard to contain, however containing him is going to be vital for Manly. He is a large portion of that Tigers attack and if we can successfully contain him then their offense will be crippled.

The centres and wingers is a battle of strength and experience vs speed and youth. All of our backs are a lot stronger than theirs, however players like Nofoaluma and Simona can completely outpace our backs. The Tigers really do have an underrated backline I think, I really rate their centre pairing. We do have an edge over their backs, however it is a surprisingly close. I do find it funny that both of the wingers in the number 5 jersey are awful players that shouldn’t be anywhere near first grade. Pro tip: if you are the betting type, Taufua and Nofoaluma AT is looking pretty good with the lack of quality that will be defending against them.

The West Tigers halves are talented, but inconsistent. They are the stereotypical ‘brought into first grade too early’ sort of players. Mitchell Moses had one of this three good games a season last week, and I will be very surprised if he or Brooks can do that again this week. I would rather have one DCE than a pair of Moses and Brooks, which thankfully we have. Our halves should be better than theirs.

The middle forwards is a very even contest. Aaron Woods is great, but Tim Grant juxtaposes this by being trash. There is a reason he was shipped off to the Rabbitohs and then was told to go home after a singular season. But then again on our side, Josh Starling is rather stock standard and Nate Myles is only above average. I hope Nate Myles picks up from his efforts last week, he wasn’t bad but I expected more from him. And whenever he took a hit-up he looked like an old man lowering himself into a bath, he just stopped at the opposition line and let them take him to the ground slowly.

Sauaso Sue and Jake Trbojevic are two very inexperienced, but very talented forwards. Sue was the best player behind Tedesco and Moses for the Tigers last weekend, he ran at the Warrior’s defence with everything he had. However, I think Jake Trbojevic is a little better. It may be his first visit this week but I do like Jake Trbojevic moving to lock. His play won’t change at al really much since most locks just play as a third prop these days but it might mean he will get more ball. And anything that gives him more ball is a benefit in my books. He is quickly becoming one of the premier forwards in the NRL so he needs as much ball as possible if our forward pack is to succeed.

I am excited to see Taupau moving to the edges, and honestly it needed to be done. Not because of his performance last week, but because the Tigers would know how to shut him down in the middle since they played with him. They would never go in one on one and would get their strongest players to chop him down with leg tackles. However, closer to the edge he will be up against worse defenders, and smaller men so he could cause havoc.

Manly’s big problem last week was that Dylan Walker got the ball far too much on the fifth tackle and in the opposition red zone. I know he was enthusiastic, which I can applaud. However he needs to be eased into the role like Milford was. DCE needed to be given the ball a lot more, because he is a player that defenders worry about on the last tackle, they give him space because he can catch them out if they rush up on him. However defenders can just rush up on Walker and be confident that he will not punish them for it and come up with a lousy play. The halves were the big problem last week, the forwards were fine. We were competing with the biggest pack in the game for a lot of last week and they held their ground well enough. They certainly didn’t come on top but we weren’t completely dominated. It was our lack of halves cohesion that was killer. I can understand splitting the ball sixty-forty or fifty-fifty in an attacking zone but when we are at the 50 metre line and need to make ground give the ball to Lyon or DCE, not Walker.

I also think we needed to use the bench dummy half more cleverly. Our ruck speed was very good when Parcell was on, but the fact that Barrett put him on just after half time was silly. I thought the point of Parcell would be to expose tired forwards, but they weren’t tired because they just came back from a break. I do think by the end of the year we will need to start running with one dummy half, and I honestly think it should be Parcell over Koroisau. But for now Parcell needs to be used more effectively, put him on just before halftime or with 20 minutes to go or something.


Conclusion:

Can we win? Yes we can. Will we win? Yes I think we will. Yes the Tigers put a big score on the Warriors, but they are the Warriors. They are less consistent than melted ice-cream. Did anyone else notice how when the Warriors finally sorted their attack out that they started scoring points at a whim against the Tigers? Well that is because the defence of the West Tigers is flimsy as all hell.

As long as we don’t coat our hands in butter before the game like we did last week, we will win. Our halves are better, our second row is better, our dummy halves are better and our backs are better. We are the better side on paper by far, and really you just need to contain Tedesco and the Tiger’s attack is stagnant. Brooks and Moses are too inexperienced and aren’t good enough to create points reliably, and Halatau was an acceptable first grade four years ago but now not so much.

After that second half capitulation by the Tigers, I don’t see how you could have as much confidence in them as some people seem to have. I don’t like their defence, and I think they looked good in attack against a Warriors side famous for its lacklustre defence. I say we will win and shut some of the more negative members of the fan base up. Manly by 10.
 
Great article a short novel actually but a great read
I agree we should see a better Tapau this week on the edges and I,d like to see more of Parcell too
Manly by 14. and Wiliame to score a try and shake that monkey off his back ( it's probably the size of a gorilla by now)
 
Well you thought our big problem was Walker getting the ball on the 5th on the opposition red zone too often.

The thing is it wouldn't matter one bit if it were Thurston, DCE, Cronk etc getting the ball in the opp red zone if we keep coughing it up in our 20, don't move off our line in defense and miss cleaning up grubbers all the time.

So since you failed to grasp the concept of holding the ball was the cause and just went with the "issue" we were supposed to have prior to the game it sounds like you missed it completely.
 
Nice article and a good read . I will happily eat my humble pie come Monday night but I am of the opposite view Tigers for mine will be hungrier and will just be too strong overall . Tigers by a margin 8-14 points
 
Well you thought our big problem was Walker getting the ball on the 5th on the opposition red zone too often.

The thing is it wouldn't matter one bit if it were Thurston, DCE, Cronk etc getting the ball in the opp red zone if we keep coughing it up in our 20, don't move off our line in defense and miss cleaning up grubbers all the time.

So since you failed to grasp the concept of holding the ball was the cause and just went with the "issue" we were supposed to have prior to the game it sounds like you missed it completely.

You are acting like I didn't mention the dropped balls though. I mentioned them twice. Thing is, when we weren't dropping the ball constantly and were actually in an attacking zone Walker did nothing for us.
 
Against the Dogs our forwards got totally outplayed. We lost the wrestle in almost every play of the ball when in attack. This gave thier defensive line great a advantage in being able to shut down our halves.

It wasn't the halves but the play of the balls from our boys that lost the game. And the countless dropped balls didn't help either.

Chez shouldn't have to make 40 tackles against the biggest pack in thr NRL, this would have had serious repicustions on his speed when running the show. This combined with a totally new spine was detremental to the cause. Having Ballin give him fast ball delivery his whole first grade career, to a new hooker giving passes slightly less on point would be an adjustment I'm sure. Ballin may not have been he fastest hooker out of dummy half but he gave excellent ball delivery.

Sanity has prevailed and we have chosen a bigger pack this week. Wether or not we can stop Woods from getting the role on and fast play of the balls for thier halves and Tedesco is the thing that scares me. We always seem to have trouble with sides that have a gun prop. Miles needs to man up and shut him down when ever he gets the ball.

If their forwards start getting the advantage thier fast outside backs with get on the outside of our slower outside backs.

If we do control the ruck better against the Tigpies it will result in our class backline finally given space to do thier thing. Which is usually beat you with skill and timing of runs.

Go Manly.
 
Having not being able to watch last week due to commitments, I'll be watching blow by blow on the Nrl App tomorrow night.
I sincerely hope the team puts up a fight. It's always a nervous wait for the first win of the year. Hope it's over tomorrow.
Go Manly!
 
Having not being able to watch last week due to commitments, I'll be watching blow by blow on the Nrl App tomorrow night.
I sincerely hope the team puts up a fight. It's always a nervous wait for the first win of the year. Hope it's over tomorrow.
Go Manly!
Here you go niccipops
 
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
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