Friday night’s NRL Round 7 match is between Manly Sea Eagles and South Sydney Rabbitohs with the game to be played at Brookvale Oval. The opening bounce is set to commence at 7:45pm AEST. Manly Sea Eagles are the current favourites for the match with the game looking very close on paper with the 3rd vs 4th match. View our live scores and results for the game between Manly Sea Eagles and South Sydney Rabbitohs.
WHERE AND WHEN: Brookvale Oval, Friday @ 19:45
Manly Sea Eagles $1.69 vs South Sydney Rabbitohs $2.20 at Sportsbet Australia
Manly Sea Eagles $1.67 vs South Sydney Rabbitohs $2.20 at Luxbet Australia
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Preview:
It’s Sea Eagles vs Rabbitohs on Friday at 7.45pm. This is possibly the most anticipated match of the round, as second place takes on third at Brookvale Oval. The Rabbitohs will be out to prove themselves against Manly, although they will have a tough time against what is possibly the best defence in the league at the moment. Greg Inglis’ hip injury is likely to play an important role for South Sydney, with Manly’s Daly Cherry Evans also likely to play a crucial role in this mouth watering encounter. The Sea Eagles will start as slight favourites, mostly because the Rabbitohs have only managed three wins from their last 17 trips to the Manly fortress.
Sea Eagles:
Brett Stewart, Jorge Taufua, Jamie Lyon, Steve Matai, David Williams, Kieran Foran, Daly Cherry-Evans, Brenton Lawrence, Matt Ballin, Brent Kite, Anthony Watmough, Justin Horo, Tom Symonds.
Interchange: Richie Fa’aoso, Joe Galuvao, Jamie Buhrer, Jason King
Rabbitohs:
Greg Inglis, Nathan Merritt, Beau Champion, Bryson Goodwin, Andrew Everingham, John Sutton, Adam Reynolds, Dave Tyrell, Issac Luke, Roy Asotasi, Chris McQueen, Ben Te’o, Sam Burgess
Interchange: Nathan Peats, Jeff Lima, Ben Lowe, George Burgess, Michael Crocker, Justin Hunt, Jason Clark (three to be omitted).
Maguire not fazed by Souths’ record
South Sydney coach Michael Maguire insists Friday’s NRL clash against Manly is not a defining match, but concedes his side will need to lift their game if they’re to break their two-year hoodoo against the Sea Eagles.
The Rabbitohs haven’t beaten Manly since round four in 2011 and go into this week’s Brookvale blockbuster against the NRL heavyweights with a last-start loss to fellow big guns Melbourne.
But Maguire on Wednesday dismissed the Rabbitohs’ record against the competition’s elite, saying his key focus was on moving the team forward.
“Those sorts of things are in the past,” he said.
“It’s about this Friday, us making sure that we go over there and perform the way we can and I’m sure that’ll sort itself out.
“Obviously Manly are a quality team and they’ve been doing that for a long time.
“We’re raising in our performances each week and we’ve got to make sure that we do that this week. This is another game for us to progress further forward to where we want to get to.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a defining game, it’s another game that we need to perform at.”
Maguire said his squad had learned a lot from their 17-10 loss to the Storm in round six, noting that Manly play a very similar game to last year’s premiers.
“We got a lot out of that game (against Melbourne) and we need to be better. Simple as that.
“The players themselves … looked at that game very closely and we’ve identified areas that we need to improve on.
“When you’re playing at that level and those type of teams, particularly with the quality players of Melbourne, they take their opportunities.
“We had some opportunities there where we could’ve done the same but we just need to probably be a little bit sharper in our execution at times.”
While Maguire said his team were fit and ready after last weekend’s break and representative matches, the second-versus-third clash will give him the chance to assess his squad and make changes where he sees fit.
“I’ve got some great players playing in reserve grade that can perform at high levels, so the competition within us at the moment is the strength of us,” he said.
“Everyone’s training hard and playing well.”