Roar Guru
The South Sydney Rabbitohs and Manly Sea Eagles clash in Friday night football at ANZ Stadium. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 7.30pm (AEST).
Manly come into this clash off a rare win having last week defeated the Tigers 30-20. Souths had the bye following their mauling at the hands of the Tigers.
Souths make two changes from their last match, welcoming back Greg Inglis and Tim Grant, with Jason Clark and John Olive dropped to make way for the pair.
Manly remain unchanged from the side that won last week.
The two sides have played 151 times in their long history, with Souths having won 71 games, Manly 77, and three draws.
Souths are sitting a comfortable sixth at the moment – not bad considering they’ve had to play a fair chunk of this season without halfback Adam Reynolds.
Manly meanwhile remain stuck to the bottom of the ladder as they struggle to turn their season around.
The Rabbits were surprisingly off against the Tigers two weeks ago. They struggled to build pressure, dropped a lot of ball and their normal stone-wall defence was easily broken down by an energetic Wests.
Souths were, however, without Greg Inglis. The big man adds a lot to the side and if his Origin performance from just over a week ago shows he’s getting back to his match-winning best.
The key to Manly’s win last week were the performances of young forward Jake Trbojevic and five-eighth Kieran Foran. Foran played perhaps his best game of the season, while Trbojevic impressed with his defensive work, upending bullocking Tigers lock Martin Tapau a number of times.
Prediction
It’s hard to go past Souths. Their last outing was embarrassing and they’re unlikely to put in consecutive poor performances.
They have the size and halves to control the match and if Greg Inglis decides to, he can break the game wide open.
Souths by 14.