Matty Johns: Manly Sea Eagles v Newcastle Knights is crucial for both teams’ season
FRIDAY’S first game is a big one for Manly and Newcastle.Both teams are facing big challenges. Disruption — Newcastle’s on-field, Manly’s off it.
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FRIDAY’S first game is a big one for Manly and Newcastle.
Both teams are facing big challenges. Disruption — Newcastle’s on-field, Manly’s off it.
For the Knights, it’s the loss of Mitchell Pearce, a player who has finally given them direction and the ability to win close contests.
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Pearce arrived in Newcastle and boldly declared he’d get them to play Finals football this year, and seven rounds in more and more people were starting to believe.
But suddenly a pec tear takes Mitchell out of the picture right up towards Finals time.
Who’s gonna lead the way now? We’ll get to that!
This week’s performance is a crucial one for Newcastle, they need to prove to themselves that they can keep winning without their key playmaker.
Confidence is everything.
I was impressed by Jack Cogger last week. He provided some nice touches and at stages took control of attacking sequences.
Now Cogger needs to be able to talk the team through 80 minutes, a big challenge for the young half.
Connor Watson returns this week, but it’s important that Connor doesn’t try to extend outside of his strengths, and that’s a high energy, run-the-football mentality.
Watson and Cogger will do the job, but the Knights need someone to make the team theirs.
Opportunity knocks for Kalyn Ponga.
Ponga has already established himself as a player of rare talent and class, however in Mitchell Pearce’s absence Kalyn has the chance to elevate his status in the game to a whole new level.
Ponga can’t do it all by himself, it’s important other members of the team lift themselves to cover the loss, but Kalyn is now the club’s most important player.
The Manly Sea Eagles’ challenge is a complicated one.
The Jackson Hastings/Daly Cherry-Evans issue has thrown this playing group.
Last week against Parramatta, there were so many things the Sea Eagles did poorly, but I have no doubt all stem from the off-field drama that has bled into the core of this team.
Historically, Manly have been a football team that has been able to function — at times you would say even thrive — in the face of drama and controversy. But they achieved this by solidifying as a playing group and creating a siege mentality.
In 2011 Des Hasler was even able to win a competition during which time the players and coaching staff were seemingly at war with sections of the Manly board and administration.
But the crucial thing here was the playing group remained intact.
Manly fans must be wondering exactly how much damage has been done by the Gladstone incident.
At best the playing group is distracted, at worst fractured.
I had an interesting conversation with Raider’s coach Ricky Stuart last Sunday regarding how off-field drama affects a modern player and team.
Where teams could once build a firewall around them, the relentless nature of all forms of media, including the likes of Twitter and Facebook, make it almost impossible for a side not to be negatively affected.
How do Manly get out of this hole?
By winning …. plain and simple. Winning mends morale.
But winning is a by-product of perfect preparation. The challenge for Trent Barrett this week would have been to refocus the team. The one positive for Manly last Sunday was the hurt on the faces of the players ….as long as there’s care, there’s life.
Newcastle can expect Manly to explode out of the blocks, that’s what Manly like to do at home, kill off the opposition early with an onslaught of high energy, attacking football.
Manly know Newcastle will try to grind them down by dominating possession and attacking the Sea Eagles with a fast-moving, aggressive defence, designed to produce errors. In the last two outings Manly’s big men tackled themselves out of petrol in the opening 30 minutes due to dropped ball and poor discipline.
This clash has a history of being a tough, physical affair, that’s a certainty with so much at stake tonight.