Round 6
Parramatta Eels 16 l. Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 20

2008 NRL Telstra Premiership Index [Table] [Draw] [Player Stats] [Club Headlines]

Location: Aus_NZ > National > First Grade Competition: NRL Telstra Premiership

Manly Injury Update
Sat April 19, 2008
Manly scored a couragoues 20-16 victory against Parramatta last night with four Sea Eagles players forced to leave the field during the match and Manly also had to overcome a lopsided penalty count to get the two points.

Winger Michael Bani has been cleared of any serious injury. Manly's medical staff will assess his situation before next week's game against the Bulldogs at Brookvale Oval. Bani was stretchered off the field seconds before half-time.

Steve Menzies hopes of beating Terry Lamb's all-time premiership record for appearances this season appears out of reach after suffering a low grade hamstring tear and will miss at least 2 weeks. Menzies was injured supporting a break leading up to the opening try where Bani scored following some crazy football by Eric Grothe in the lead up to the try.

Prop Mark Bryant suffered a knee injury and is in doubt for next week and Luke Williamson suffered a concussion and will be assessed before next game.

Manly led 10-4 at half-time against the Eels and extended that lead to 14-4 before two quick tries got Parramatta back to 16-14. A try to Heath L'Estrange in the 75th minute saw the Sea Eagles grab the lead and they held on for the two points despite having four players off the field.

The Sea Eagles at home to the Bulldogs next Saturday night with kick off at 5:30pm.


Michael Hagan Press Conference Transcript - Eels v Sea Eagles
Sat April 19, 2008
Source: www.parraeels.com.au

Michael Hagan Post Match Press Conference Transcript following Eels loss to Manly and includes one question answered by Eels captain Nathan Cayless.

Question: Is there a feeling of shell shock Michael?

Michael Hagan: Yeah, probably hard to know how to react to that one, in fact.

Q: Is it a feeling of one that shouldn't have got away?

MH: I think the game was there to be won at the end. We gave ourselves a chance to win the game and I think we lost it rather than they won it, to be fair.

Q: Michael you've obviously talked after a few losses about different things the team has gone wrong with this season, I know you probably don't want to mention the same things, but where do you go from here?

MH: We've got the bye next week, that's a fair starting point.

I don't think I could face up to it again next week based on some of things that we're tossing up at the moment. I can't explain and I certainly can't understand.

Q: Is it just as difficult for you, Nathan, to understand and put into words what's going wrong?

Nathan Cayless: Frustrating. Making it hard for ourselves.

Q: Michael are you feeling that loss at the moment more than you ever have before as a coach?

MH: Oh no I think I've been in difficult situations before.

I think the importance of the game is not lost on anybody tonight and I'm sure Manly would be extremely thankful for two points that they desperately needed, as we did. And I guess in that context the loss was extremely disappointing.

Q: Are blokes not putting in Michael, do you think? Or were you happy with that? By the looks, probably not.

MH: Oh no I think there's some decent effort in that team at the moment. And even defensively. But we deadest gifted them 16 points in 20, which I'm not happy about, and as I said we're good enough to fight our way back to get ourselves in the lead. So you can't be disappointed with the effort overall.

But there are some parts in amongst that. We delivered the first ten points in the first five minutes, which you can't even describe, and then at the end in the last eight minutes the game was there to be won and we couldn't defend our line again.

There might have been a couple of things that went against us in amongst all that. I certainly wasn't happy with, I think there was one penalty in the second half 20 minutes in for maybe inside the ten, I thought that was, given that they had three men down and they needed to slow the game down I didn't think we got any benefit at the ruck at all in the first 20 minutes and I think that is something that needs to be reviewed because it didn't allow us to play too much footy. And the conditions also lent itself to that, but they were getting off the line early and there was a lot of stuff at the ruck that I think we wouldn't normally tolerate at this level. And I'd like to know why that was. Why those indicators changed today versus another game where I'm sure more penalties would have been issued had that been the case.

But that's not an excuse for winning or losing, that'd just an observation of what happened.

Q: You look pretty dejected now, what were you like up in the box when they scored that try at the end there?

MH: I think? I don't know what word I'd use to describe that. I know it doesn't feel good.

Q: What did you say to the players at the end of the game there, when you got up to the sheds. What can you say to them after that?

MH: Well I guess you can't just keep tossing up a decent amount of effort any more. You've got to be accountable for decisions that you make in the game and defensive decisions that we came up with on that left hand side again were awful, that conceded two pretty soft tries I thought in the end, again.

It's not as though they weren't, it wasn't a secret, a couple of the options that they ran, and they weren't that complicated. They're the disappointing things, you should be able to handle that better, I think, at this level.

Q: I know it's early days Michael, but would you consider with the bye having a bit of a break?

MH: I think physically players are probably just getting to a stage where there probably getting through games all right, and they're in a decent routine, so I don't know if it's come at a good or a bad time for us. Mentally, maybe it would be helpful, but you know mentally I don't think it's going to help you for a couple of days, that one.

Q: Are changes to this team the answer?

MH: I think we're running with the players that we think can get the job done. We knew that it might take a while for the team to settle down with what we've been through early in the week, but again that's not an excuse.

I think we demonstrated we could get ourselves back in the game by virtue of what we did. And it was just an arm wrestle and a grind and we weren't able to stay in it for long enough.

Q: Michael is everything that's happened off the field, stretching back to the summer, and culminating in this week, has it had any effect on this team do you think now?

MH: I'm not sure that it has, to be honest. You know we've got some very good players at the footy club that are in good shape and we expect to get the job done. So, I don't think we're using too many excuses there.

News sent by www.parraeels.com.au

Fri April 18, 2008
• Sea Eagles trump Eels on wet night at Parramatta Stadium
  
Tue April 15, 2008
• Keating to make first grade debut for Eels against Manly
  

Advanced Search