Manly captain Ed Gower – Photo: Carl Peterson

by Brendan Bradford –

Manly vs Randwick at Manly Oval, Saturday 3pm –

Randwick have the fourth best defensive record in the competition but conceded almost a quarter of those 457 to Manly in two heavy losses. A 60-12 loss at home and a 48-0 loss at Manly Oval leaves no doubt as to the task facing the Galloping Greens this Saturday.

“We shipped over 100 points to them already, so no one expects anything of us and no one believes that we’re any chance of winning, and rightly so, because we haven’t shown any form against them and they’re top of the comp – but we’re a chance,” said Wicks coach Wade Kelly.

“No one’s unbeatable, we’ve seen that this year and if you watch the Warringah match, it was their Grand Final and Manly were a bit off and against Easts they dropped the ball over the line a few times and didn’t kick for points.”

Manly are coming off another couple of big wins to end the regular season but coach, Phil Blake knows his side hasn’t achieved anything yet.

“Plenty of sides win the Minor Premiership but don’t go on to win anything and we’re quite conscious that although we’ve been consistent, come Saturday, there’s a new three week season and unless you win that, no one’s really going to care what happened before, so we’re certainly not being complacent,” he said.

“That’s been the message for the last six weeks, we’ve had a couple of hiccups, but since that lull against Easts and Warringah we got back on track in terms of attitude and input in regards to attention to detail.”

Although Blake can call on the season’s top try-scorer in Harry Bergelin and a host of experienced club players, he will be keeping an eye on two of Randwick’s brightest young talents.  

“They’ve got Horwitz and Kellaway, two of Australia’s exciting young kids coming through the system,” he said.

“They’ve certainly made a difference over the last two or three weeks since coming back from the U-20s World Cup and I’m looking forward to watching them up close because they’re exciting, they’ve got a lot of potential and they make a big difference to Randwick when they play.”

Manly: 1. Eddie Aholelei, 2. Dave Porecki, 3. Mitch Lewis, 4. Greg Peterson, 5. Ed Gower (c), 6. Harry Bergelin, 7. Kotoni Ale, 8. Daniel Alley, 9. Mark Swanepoel, 10. Sam Vaevae, 11. Dane Chisholm, 12. Kasye Greer, 13. Brian Sefanaia, 14. Alex Northam, 15. BJ Hartmann.

Randwick: 1. Toa Asa (c), 2. Pat Hodgetts, 3. Tristan Goodbody, 4. Jesse Harris, 5. Josh Eden – Whitari, 6. Will Munro, 7. Tom Connor, 8. Mark Baldwin, 9. Tim Donlan, 10. David Horwitz, 11. Nathan Roye, 12. William Rees-Hole, 13. Kuki Ma’afu, 14. Ethan Ford, 15. Andrew Kellaway.

Referee: Michael Hogan

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Eastwood v Southern Districts at T.G. Millner, Sunday 3 August, 3pm –

These two sides played each other just two weeks ago with the Woods coming away with a hard fought 16-13 win at Forshaw Park. The tight encounter was a precursor to what this weekend’s finals matches will be, said Eastwood coach John Manenti.

“It was semi-finals type football which is what you want at this time,” he said.

“At the time, I was reasonably happy with how we hung in there and how we played, but in review I think we were pretty poor actually. That’s often the way when you look at it without too much emotion. Knowing you’ve got the result you can be a bit more analytical. Souths were up for it and played with great enthusiasm.”

Souths were disrupted after losing playmaker Ben Volavola on the eve of that match but the young Waratah will line up at 10 for the Rebels this Saturday.

“We lost a couple of players late and it was a very physical battle,” said Southern Districts coach Matt Barr of the match.

“(Volavola) had a similar injury with the Waratahs at the start of the year which put him out for about 10 days. It’s going to be tough but to win the competition you’re going to have to beat sides like Eastwood and Manly.”

Eastwood are back at fortress T.G. Millner for a rare Sunday match and Manenti is expecting another tough encounter.

“There’s no question they’ll be better next time around and we just need to keep looking forward and not back,” he said.

“We need to do a lot of things better too and I’ve drilled the guys about playing semi-final football so there were certain things we didn’t do well, but there were things we did well too.”

Eastwood: 1. Jed Gillespie, 2. Hugh Roach, 3. Guy Millar, 4. Jared Barry, 5. Andrew Clyne, 6. Michael Kovacic, 7. Hugh Perrett, 8. Pat Sio, 9. Mick Snowden, 10. Jai Ayoub, 11. Nick Batger, 12. Tom Hill, 13. Michael McDougall, 14. John Grant, 15. Ben Batger.

Southern Districts: 1. Duncan Chubb, 2. Maile Nguamo, 3. Tim Metcher, 4. Andrew Leota, 5. Jake Douglas, 6. Marcus Carbone, 7. Kieran Black, 8. Jed Holloway (c), 9. Chris O’Reilly, 10. Ben Volavola, 11. Afa Pakalani, 12. Apo Latunipulu, 13. Paul Asquith, 14. Alex Gibbon, 15. Ben Connelly.

Referee: Will Houston