Waqa Waqa! Blake's blistering form no joke

Penrith centre Waqa Blake played what could be the breakout performance of his NRL career in the Panthers’ gritty win over the Sydney Roosters.

After his most productive game of 2016 (a line-break, one try, 118 metres and four tackle-breaks), Blake credited his improved form to having successfully completed pre-season training, as well as having the opportunity to play each week in his preferred position at right centre.

“Obviously in my rookie year last year I didn’t have a pre-season,” Blake said.

“But this year, having a pre-season has allowed me to work on being professional with everything I do and it’s definitely helped playing with the boys.

“While I want to be able to play everywhere and not just play in the one spot, I definitely love playing in the centres and that’s going to help my development.”

Blake said scoring his first try for 2016, a scorching 45-metre effort off a sublime Isaah Yeo offload, was a surreal feeling, as it had been some time since he had broken the line and scored.

“[Yeo] did most of the work.”

“It was a well-constructed play with him and Bryce [Cartwright]. I was just there at the right place at the right time.”

His 27 tackles were arguably even more pleasing, given the Roosters threw plenty of traffic down Penrith’s right edge defence of Cartwright (44 tackles), Te Maire Martin (27 tackles) and himself.

Blake said their ability to handle the defensive workload was reflective of the work done in pre-season.

“We knew they were come at us hard and yeah it was really a tough night on our edge,” he said.

“But we’ve been working tough on our defence all pre-season.

“We don’t want to be like last year, where we were that team that was really soft and just gave up near the end.”

Despite his strong showing against the Roosters, Blake says Dean Whare deserves to resume his place in the team at right centre when he returns from injury, which is expected to be as early as Round 9.

“Personally, I think I’ve been up and down still and I have a lot of work to do,” Blake explained.

“Deano he’s been there with me even though he’s been injured.

“I look up to him and he helps me out a lot.”

While Blake isn’t confident of holding his spot, coach Anthony Griffin is more than happy with his form, admitting that the centre will provide yet another selection headache in coming weeks.

“Waqa’s been one of our better players the last few weeks so he’s earning his spot every week,” Griffin said.

But for now, Blake is looking forward to Sunday’s big clash in the Shire against one of the competition’s better sides, Cronulla, who are coming off a 40-16 away win over Canberra.

“I think they’re going really good especially after that big win against the Raiders,” Blake said.

“For us it’s just a matter of getting our focus back and cover what we’ve done wrong and get ready for the next game.

“We’re not where we need to be yet.

“It’s still a long way, but we think [we] took a step in the right direction tonight.”