Roar Guru
Daly Cherry-Evans has inspired Manly to a 18-6 NRL win over fellow strugglers Canterbury to vault them out of wooden-spoon contention.
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Final score
Manly Sea Eagles 18
Canterbury Bulldogs 6
Round 22 of the NRL season continues this Saturday evening as the Manly Sea Eagles take on the Canterbury Bulldogs at the McGrath Foundation Stadium. Join The Roar for live scores and a blog of the match, starting at 5:30pm (AEST).
In recent weeks, the race for the eight has been matched by the race for teams trying to avoid the wooden spoon. Both these teams upstaged their semi-final bound rivals last weekend, with the Bulldogs playing an entertaining brand of football to beat the Broncos, while the Sea Eagles kept the hoodoo alive and well with a golden point win against the Sharks.
After the Manly’s capitulation against Penrith in the last 10 minutes of the previous round, the win against the Sharks showed plenty of character. Shaun Lane was huge, literally, against Cronulla whilst Daly Cherry-Evans was back to his best. He will need to repeat that form tonight for the Sea Eagles to earn another victory.
Frank Winterstein moves to the interchange bench in place of Jack Gosiewski. Otherwise, the Sea Eagles are unchanged.
The Bulldogs put together back to back wins for the first time this season last weekend so a 3rd win in a row this weekend would break further new ground. As is so often the case, a team out of the finals race is suddenly playing a less structured game of NRL and the results are there to see. The Bulldogs fans will be hoping for another exciting brand of football this weekend.
In changes to their team, Jeremy Marshall-King returns at halfback, so we have a battle of the hyphens in the no 7 jersey. David Klemmer returns from suspension, with both Greg Eastwood and Danny Fualolo starting from the bench.
Prediction
We should have a high scoring clash this evening, with a warm day in Sydney expected to result in dry conditions. To my thinking, this is really a toss of the coin decision but I’d expect Manly to get the win at home, especially if their fans turn up.
Join The Roar for live scores and a blog of the match, starting at 5:30pm (AEST).