Manly veteran Joe Galuvao admits the Sea Eagles will have to alter their game plan when they open their NRL season next weekend.
The Eagles will take on Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium minus back-row mainstays Tony Williams and Glenn Stewart, Williams now with Canterbury and Stewart nursing a knee injury expected to sideline him for the first six rounds of the season.
The likes of Galuvao, Anthony Watmough and Jamie Buhrer will be called on to shoulder more of the load, but Galuvao said the team’s attacking style would also change with the different personnel.
“We’ve trained for a while expecting those guys not to be around and the guys that have stepped in have done really well,” Galuvao said.
“Obviously having Glenn and T-Rex not playing in the team makes our game plan a little different … so we’ve had to change our structure as a team.
“But nothing changes in terms of intensity and the way we’re going to approach games or in terms of our attitude.”
The loss of Williams on top of fellow forwards Darcy Lussick and Daniel Harrison (both Parramatta), along with an ageing side, has some critics believing the Sea Eagles’ premiership window may have closed.
Manly have played finals football every year since 2005, a run which has included two premierships and another grand final appearance.
But Galuvao said the Sea Eagles have heard the same talk before.
“That’s what they were saying to us last year but we were one game away from a grand final.
“We’re always going to have our knockers but for us we’ve had a really good trait of proving our knockers on and just getting on with it and that’s been our attitude.”