Trent Barrett aiming to unleash Martin Taupau as Manly try to rebound

TRENT Barrett has revealed that Martin Taupau’s move to the second row is aimed at unleashing the full destructive power of the dynamic Kiwi.

Martin Taupau of Manly during the Manly Sea Eagles v Canterbury Bulldogs NRL round 1 game at Brookvale Oval. pic Mark Evans

SEA Eagles coach Trent Barrett has revamped his pack to give strike forward Marty Taupau the freedom to make a bigger impact when he takes on his former club the Wests Tigers at Leichhardt Oval on Monday night.

Following Manly’s first round 28-6 loss to the Bulldogs, Barrett has moved prop Jake Trbojevic to lock, promoted Josh Starling into the frontrow and moved the explosive Taupau to the edge,

“We play with three ‘middles’ so I just think it gives us an extra bigger body, moving Marty to an edge,” Barrett said.

“It gives us four big blokes to try and get us off to a start which we didn’t get last week.”

He said Trbojevic’s role will not really change with his switch.

Barrett revealed another reason for the changes was that Taupau had to make 40 tackles against the Bulldogs.

“I don’t want to nullify the impact that he has, and hopefully he won’t have quite as much work to do on an edge,” he said.

“And when he does get the ball it will have an impact- they are my thoughts behind it.”

Barrett didn’t want to make a big deal about Taupau’s return to Leichhardt for the first time on Monday.

“He’s got some things to work on from last week that he wouldn’t be happy with and we all have,” the coach said.

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“We’ve all had to have a real good hard think about what went wrong last week and how we can fix it — and that is myself included - so I don’t want to put any undue pressure on Marty.

“He just needs to carry the ball strongly and do all those little things right.”

Barrett said Taupau was a bit of a crowd favourite at Leichhardt and was sure he will get some stick, but that won’t worry him.

Taupau failed to make much of an impact in his Manly debut.

He said Starling and new interchange prop Brenton Lawrence had earned their spots after solid performances in the NSW Cup side last week.

“We are going to have to keep picking the team on form and it may take a little while to get all those combinations right but I am really happy with the pack we have this week,” he said.

Barrett said fullback Brett Stewart, who has hamstring injury, will not be a late inclusion and is not expected back for a couple of weeks.

“He still won’t be right,” Barrett said. “He’s as frustrated as anyone and he is important to the side.

“But I thought Tom Trbojevic did a terrific job last week, he tried really hard in difficult circumstances and he was coming off limited preparation as well.”

Originally published as Trent Barrett aiming to unleash Martin Taupau as Manly try to rebound