Thoughts? I'm almost sure Manly will come rushing in defence, they tried it in the semi final but kinda only made half an effort of doing it unlike Melbourne. Could open the door for Barba, could definitely open the door for Matai over doing it and trying to put on a hit.
Should be a good night, as you mentioned Matai's over enthusiasm could be huge. Is anybody going by any chance?
The Bulldogs don't have the players to exploit a compressed defence currently IMO. Keating is terrible and Kasiano and Graham won't be playing so they'll really struggle to get the ball out the back cleanly in general.
Rain can get fucked, first game I'll be attending of the year. Flying down tonight, should be the business.
No doubt. But even then their forward pack is more than good enough to match it in the middle. They'd have to definitely dominate the Manly pack though which is unlikely especially with Keating's last play options. Unless they get a bit of luck Manly should win.
Yeah that's the thing unfortunately, unless we get right on top of their pack pretty much from the get go and have a few stellar individual performances from Barba and co I can't see us getting on top here.
I tipped Manly in my awesome tipping thread that none of you faggots want to post in. Well sucks to be you.
Elaborate? And is it still raining in Sydney? Poured last night here on the Gold Coast, it has eased up now but good chance will be raining again tonight, surface will be wet at least anyways.
Tough game to pick - really hinges on how our forward pack goes. If we can win the battle up the middle and be solid defensively like we played against Melbourne we should win.