Another season… another Grand Final for Manly.
Des Hasler has now guided the mighty Sea Eagles into seven consecutive Finals appearances and three Grand Finals in five seasons… what a coach!
I just can’t see Manly losing this Sunday’s decider. This team seems unstoppable… young inexperienced halves and bench players playing like 200 game veterans! Veterans like Jamie Lyon, Michael Robertson, Shane Rodney and Joe Galuvao playing like youngsters at the peak of their powers. The whole team playing with aggression, purpose and power. What a coach!
Speaking of Galuvao, how does Russell Crowe’s “forget football and become a Pastor” advice look now? Big Joe’s been sensational for Manly this year and this weekend appears in his 3rd Grand Final since ignoring The Gladiator’s advice to retire! Go Joe!
Manly were again terrific against the Broncos in the Preliminary Final last Friday night. On fire from the start, the game was as good as over after 20 minutes. As hard as they tried, Brisbane was never going to recover from a 16-0 deficit in a game of this magnitude, given Manly are playing with so much confidence.
Yes there was the odd defensive lapse… (like allowing Corey Parker to offload for Wallace to score and Georgie Rose tackling the post instead) and the Broncos were very unlucky not to have at least two more tries on the board. (What a tackle by Killer!) But I felt Manly butchered a couple of try scoring opportunities too… and yet they always seemed to have the Broncos’ measure.
As for the Warriors… they were simply brilliant against the Storm – particularly in that second half. It was undoubtedly their most disciplined and controlled effort of the season – their best game by far. I kept waiting for Melbourne to ‘storm home’… for one of ‘the Big 3’ to do something extra brilliant to steal victory… but the Warriors’ effort in defence was outstanding.
Strangely enough, I think that could be their undoing this weekend. They just may have played their ‘Grand Final’ a week early.
And having returned home across the Ditch from Melbourne on the weekend, they’ve had just two days of euphoria with the locals before having to turn around and come back to Oz for all the Grand Final hoopla occurring in the lead up to this weekend. There’ll be media interviews galore; the Grand Final Breakfast; the Footy Show special on Thursday night; different training grounds; that away from home ‘stranger in a strange place’ kinda feeling to deal with all week. And most of the Warriors are new to this.
In contrast, the Sea Eagles are training at Narrabeen all week – business as usual. 10 or more of the squad have the experience of having played in at least one Grand Final and young Hoppa has already played in the cauldron that is State of Origin this year.
Jamie Buhrer - Match Winner
Matai would have been a massive loss in the centres, but with Steve having no charge to answer for that incident with Yow Yeh and T-Rex also able to play and continue his incredible late season form, the Footballing Gods that Gus Gould quotes so regularly seem to be smiling on the Eagles.And while the Warriors have their own brilliant youngsters (notably Locke and Johnson) I’ll back Cherry-Evans and Foran to continue their rare vein of form… and (here’s a tip) I honestly think Jamie Buhrer could prove the match winner. (You heard it here first.)
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