Welcome back to The Roar‘s regular NRL Thursday Night Forecast series. Tonight’s game at Brookvale Oval, between the Manly Sea Eagles and Parramatta Eels features two teams coming off strong wins.

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After several weeks of games on Thursday nights featuring at least one team entering the game on the back of a heavy loss, we finally have a game in which both teams enter the game after excellent victories, after both the Eels and Sea Eagles recorded fine wins in Round 7.

For Eels, it was a relieving win built once again on defence but featuring, for the first time all season, an attractive attacking game plan that extended beyond ‘hey Semi Radradra is pretty big let’s see what happens when he runs at that smaller guy’.

We will look in closer detail at that later but it is safe to say that it was wonderful to watch for everyone not sporting lime green on Saturday afternoon.

The win over the Raiders was also apparently very meaningful for a large group of Eels fans who started chanting at former coach Ricky Stuart during the game. This was presumably in appreciation of the outstanding job he did during his short time at the club clearing out the copious dead wood that the club’s former management had accumulated and allowing for the rebuild that is working well this year.

Whatever the reason, the fans have a right to be exuberant with a team that looks about as good as even the most wishful fan might have hoped. They definitely look like a top four contender at this stage.

The Sea Eagles recorded an excellent win in New Zealand where poor old Ryan Hoffman lost his damn mind.

Whether it was refereeing (it wasn’t) or poor attitude at times from the Warriors (getting warmer) – it was a fine performance from the Sea Eagles, earned through the middle of the field with strong performances from forwards such as Jake Trbojevic, Nate Myles and Tom Symonds.

The Sea Eagles are still a work in progress after considerable changeover in the offseason but the framework of a top eight team is very much in place.

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Team Sheet

Sea Eagles	Position	Eels
Brett Stewart	Fullback	Michael Gordon
Jorge Taufua	Left Winger	Semi Radradra
Steve Matai	Left Centre	Michael Jennings
Jamie Lyon	Right Centre	Brad Takarangi
Tom Trbojevic	Right Winger	Clinton Gutherson
Dylan Walker	Left half	Corey Norman
Apisai Koroisau	Right Half	Kieran Foran
Nate Myles	Prop	Junior Paulo
Matt Parcell	Hooker	Nathan Peats
Darcy Lussick	Prop	Daniel Alvaro
Feleti Mateo	Left Second Row	Manu Ma’u
Martin Taupau	Right Second Row	Beau Scott
Jake Trbojevic	Lock	Tepai Moeroa
Lewis Brown	Interchange	Isaac de Gois
Josh Starling	Interchange	Peni Terepo
Brenton Lawrence	Interchange	Danny Wicks
Siosaia Vave	Interchange	Kenny Edwards

After their outstanding performances on the weekend it is not a surprise that there have been no changes to either side.

While no changes were made we can still identify a key player who has recently returned to the side and made an impact.

For the Sea Eagles it was Jake Trbojevic after he missed the game against the Rabbitohs with injury. Trbojevic has been one of the Sea Eagles best in 2016 and his absence was felt in the match with the Bunnies. After a strong rookie campaign in the front row, Trbojevic was switched to lock early this season and he is beginning to flourish.

While both positions are typically considered “middles” in the modern game, the lock role has required Trbojevic to substantially increase his minutes played, averaging over 70 minutes a game since the shift in Round 2. He has done so without losing much of his impact, continuing to hit the ball up well and routinely imparting his special brand of old school snap you in half tackling on anything that comes down the middle channel.

Meanwhile, for the Eels after missing three weeks through injury, dummy half Nathan Peats returned with excellence against the Raiders. While grizzled veteran Isaac de Gois had done a fine job in his three appearances, Peats is a cut above de Gois. Against the Raiders, Peats was constantly probing around the fringes of the ruck and routinely got players like Junior Paulo and Kenny Edwards on the front foot.

What to watch for
Unsurprisingly in a game pitting a star half against his previous club we’re going to look at the two number sevens’ but before getting to Kieran Foran we will look first at the man filling in for the mate Foran left behind.

When you pay a player a reported million dollars a season and then gets injured it is reasonable to assume the team is going to struggle. When the player selected to replace him isn’t a regular at that position it should be even more warning that things are going to turn dark for a while.

However, quite the opposite has happened with dummy half Apisai Koroisau deputising for the injured Daly Cherry-Evans at halfback. The Eagles have (first 20 minutes against the Rabbitohs aside) played very well under Koroisau’s direction in the less familiar role of halfback. A situation that could easily have turned into a fatal tailspin has in fact pulled into graceful climb.

Before we proceed into analysing Koroisau, let’s make one thing abundantly clear:

The following assessment in no way intended to suggest that Koroisau is a better player than Daly Cherry-Evans. Nor should it be taken as suggesting that that the Eagles were better off with Koroisau than they would have been with Cherry-Evans last week, or any other week. Cherry-Evans is an elite player with an excellent track record and his presence on the team will make the Eagles better.

However all that can still be true and we can all still agree that Koroisau has been downright terrific the last two weeks (and if you want to have a conversation about whether he or Dylan Walker should make way for Cherry-Evans when he returns from injury then that is a conversation I’m more interested in).

While Koroisau has been solid all over the field he has been particularly effective inside the opposition 20m, which shall be referred to as the red zone. This is well demonstrated by the starring role he took against the Warriors in red zone scoring opportunities.

On Saturday evening the Sea Eagles had nine sets conclude with a play the ball within the red zone, thereby providing an opportunity to attack. On seven of nine occasions Koroisau made the critical play with an awful Dylan Walker dump pass to Jake Trbojevic and a bungled short side run from Jamie Lyon the other two plays.

The Koroisau-orchestrated plays looked like this:

6th Minute: after a play the ball right under the posts Koroisau shifted to the left edge and delivered a grubber towards the left edge which ricocheted off Shaun Johnson before falling for Martin Taupau to score the first try.

10th Minute after a play the ball 20 metres out and on the right edge Koroisau placed a chip kick towards fullback Roger Tuivasa-Sheck who was immediately swallowed 5m out from his own line.

18th Minute: Another play the ball 20m out on the right side. This time Koroisau attempted a run play which resulted in a rushed kick infield from Tom Trbojevic which in turn amounted to nothing. Not a great option.

42nd Minute: Play the ball on the line to the left of the posts, Koroisau at first receiver. He worked his way around defenders before putting in a grubber kick towards the posts which was collected in-goal by Solomana Kata and subsequently led to a contentious decision to order a goal-line drop out.

44th Minute: The final play the ball was to the right of the posts but once again Koroisau grubbered from about 8-10m out and towards the posts. This time it was rewarded as Tuivasa-Sheck was unable (and some Warriors fans on social media suggested, unwilling) to get there in time before Steve Matai collected the try.

61st Minute: Another play the ball on the line to the right of the posts and yet another raking grubber back towards the posts. This time it was collected safely by the Warriors with the tackle taken only a few metres outside their in-goal.

70th Minute: For his final lesson Koroisau did something a little different, setting up a try with a pass instead of a kick. Again though it was Steve Matai – who had come hunting on the right edge of the posts – who was the beneficiary of a lovely inside ball when the Eagles had numbers stacked further out to the right.

So a theme quickly emerges – Apisai Koroisau is good at grubber kicks and he likes to kick back towards the posts.

While Koroisau’s final try assist of the game may have come from a pass four of his seven last play options in the red zone were grubbers with three of those aimed at the posts. To give you a better sense of what that looks like on the field we turn back to the kick map.

Kicking towards the posts is a simple but incredibly effective tactic. With the size of modern padding the posts present a significant obstruction for defenders which can either interrupt line of sight or quite simply get in the way.

Of course the grubber kick close to the line is not without risk. If you get it wrong you may put the ball dead and give up a seven tackle set. However, Koroisau has displayed a steady foot and the ability to weight his kicks effectively to force a contest without giving up the dead ball. Eels’ fullback Michael Gordon will need to have his skates on tonight to counter this threat.

Meanwhile, for the Eels the exciting development in the humbling of the Raiders was the attack finally catching up to the defence. In particular, it was the five star performance of Kieran Foran that caught the eye.

Regular readers of this column will be aware that I strongly subscribe to the view that essentially every team in the NRL plays some version of a split halves system with the titles halfback and five-eighth largely outdated and players more accurately described as left half or right half. Even ball dominant players like Johnathan Thurston and Shaun Johnson mostly stay in their lane

So then, about that?

It seems like Kieran Foran is, in good ball situations at least, actually playing more like a traditional first receiver halfback with Corey Norman and Michael Gordon both acting as ancillary playmakers.

Time and time again against the Raiders, Foran strayed well away from his nominal slot on the right edge and made critical plays on the left side, even out beyond the left hash mark. This put the Raiders already fragile right edge defence in a tizz as they had to adapt to facing a playmaker they clearly weren’t expecting or able to contain on that edge.

Let’s take a look at some of those plays.

Our first still shows Foran’s involvement in the play would eventually lead to Michael Jennings scoring the first try of the game untouched under the posts. As the play begins we see Foran gliding across field with Corey Norman who also played a key role already in prime position and Manu Ma’u engaged on his decoy run. Foran is of course already a long way from home on the right edge.

In this second play Foran is even further afield, actually running a short side play down the left edge after Norman was caught with the ball on tackle five. Again in this one we can see Ma’u running that hard decoy line to suck in defenders and while this play didn’t lead to a try it did earn a repeat set.

Our third play is all too familiar for Raiders fans with Foran cruising from right to left – the ball in two hands, Ma’u is again setting up for a power run inside and Norman is waiting for a pass. This play did unfold for a half break from Norman to Jennings but the end result was a broken field play with the Raiders recovering near their own line.

Each of the plays above either led directly to points, to a mini-break for the Eels or to the Raiders taking possession in their own corner. All of these build pressure on the opposition and at worst generally allow the Eels to reload from better starting position next set.

Of course there was also one time in the first half where Foran ran straight through the heart of the Raiders’ defence before putting a step on Jack Wighton that was more slow-motion emasculation than it was football move.

In summary he was very, very good on Saturday afternoon.

After seeing the evidence of the benefit of a free-roaming halfback written large on the scoreboard one might wonder why any team persists with the split halves? The first reason is talent. What Foran does requires a player with phenomenal skill and vision.

The second reason is defence. In modern NRL, defensive structure is absolutely critical and that structure is largely premised on a half stationed three in on each edge. Ideally he will be paired with a ferocious and tenacious second rower inside and a rugged centre outside. Every man in the line knows his job and (though you wouldn’t know it from watching Blake Austin and Joey Leilua on Saturday) they communicate effectively to counter threats.

This reliance on structure means that if a last tackle play goes awry or there is an error while Foran is freelancing way over on the left edge it is going to take him some time to get back to his slot on the right. That window of time may well be enough for the other team to capitalise on a disorganized team.

However the Eels seem to have confidence in their defence, and particularly their scrambling defence such that they are comfortable taking this risk to reap the rewards of an unshackled Foran.

In my Eels season preview, I made Foran the “player to watch” for the Eels in 2016 and wondered aloud whether Foran had the capacity to expand his game from the complementary role he had played alongside Cherry-Evans at Manly, to an all-encompassing team General role. In fact here’s exactly what I asked:

“Whether Foran took a back seat at the Sea Eagles because of the copious talent around him, or whether it is simply not his game to be a primary playmaker will be fascinating to see.”

On the evidence of what we have seen this season, and particularly in the game against the Raiders, the answer is a resounding yes and it’s a short bet he will be keen to demonstrate it to his former teammates tonight.

First try scorer – Corey Norman

So many excellent choices in this game but in the end I’ve gone for the Eels left half. It’s fair to expect that after the demolition job the Eels did on the Raiders right edge defence that the Eagles will be keen to avoid getting beaten down that corridor. Which will only open up space for Norman to cut back inside to score.

Prediction – Eels in a close one
This is by far the hardest Thursday Night game to pick a winner in since Round 1. Both teams have an excellent case based on their most recent game. On the one hand we have the Eagles coming off a fine win in New Zealand, with a home crowd and some former colleagues to hopefully chasten.

But on the other we have a team in the Eels that has now added a blistering attack to an already fierce defence, with a pair of halves who have already demonstrated a telepathic connection.

In the end I’m taking the Eels to carry their attacking panache into another game and play the Eagles out of it before they have a chance to settle.

Shoe in of the Week
Did you know Kieran Foran used to play for the Sea Eagles? I have a feeling that might come up during the broadcast.

Eleventy billion times.

Read the Thursday Forecast here every week and follow Lachlan on Twitter @mrsports83