The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles will host the Canterbury- Bankstown Bulldogs at Lottoland on Saturday afternoon which will kick off at 4:35 AEST.
Both teams will be coming off their first victory of the 2017 season and will be determined to make it two wins in a row.
Manly’s Captain Daly Cherry Evans will play his 150th NRL game.
Brett Morris will also play his 200th NRL game when he runs out for the Dogs.
Last Time Out
It’s always a healthy rivalry when these two sides clash and Bulldogs have come out on top after the following two matches. In round one last year, the Bulldogs defeated Manly 28-6 at Brookvale Oval as well as in round 23 defeating them by four.
The Bulldogs have defeated the Sea Eagles 2/2 within the 2016 season and will be attempting to make it 3/3 but the Sea Eagles will have a lot to prove in front of a home crowd.
Key Match Up
The key match-up for this game will be between the two players who wear the number seven jersey, Daly Cherry Evans (DCE) and Moses Mbye.
Both were able to impress with their kicking game and control their side in round three. In their last round, both DCE and Mbye were able to have a huge influence on their side.
Daly Cherry Evans impressed with his kicking game, setting up one try. The game-changer and momentum shifter was after he kicked the 40/20, in the next set play he kicked a clever grubber which saw teammate Jorge Taufua pick up and score.
Moses Mbye lead from the front as halfback, and played one of his best games in the number seven jersey last week against the Warriors. And if he repeats the way he played against the Warriors and has a confidence boost he might be very dangerous for the Bulldogs. He converted three of the four tries as well as going over to score a try himself after some brilliant footwork.
Prediction
With the home side defeating the North Queensland Cowboys away from home they will be confident heading into the game.
Bulldogs will also have developed confidence especially with their new recruits, Abbey and Montoya performing last week.
The dogs defence last week was very impressive and hard to default therefore I predict the dogs to defeat the Sea Eagles by 6.
Squads
Sea Eagles: 1 Tom Trbojevic 2 Jorge Taufua 3 Dylan Walker 4 Brian Kelly 5 Akuila Uate 6 Blake Green 7 Daly Cherry-Evans (c) 8 Brenton Lawrence 9 Api Koroisau 10 Martin Taupau 11 Frank Winterstein 12 Curtis Sironen 13 Jake Trbojevic 14 Lewis Brown 15 Nate Myles 16 Jackson Hastings 17 Addin Fonua-Blake 18 Shaun Lane 19 Jarrad Kennedy 20 Matthew Wright 21 Billy Bainbridge
Bulldogs: 1 Brad Abbey 2 Brett Morris 3 Josh Morris 4 Brenko Lee 5 Marcelo Montoya 6 Josh Reynolds 7 Moses Mbye 8 Aiden Tolman 9 Michael Lichaa 10 James Graham 11 Josh Jackson 12 Greg Eastwood 13 David Klemmer 14 Sam Kasiano 15 Danny Fualalo 16 Adam Elliot 17 Raymond Faitala-Mariner 18 Craig Garvey 19 Matt Frawley 20 Francis Tualau 21 Reimis Smith
