Lewis Brown says the Sea Eagles are not worried about who they may have ‘surprised’ with the team’s form to date this season.
Manly sit in fifth place with eight wins from 13 games with many believing the Trent Barrett coached side has caught a lot of teams and experts alike off guard with their fine performances.
“We are not too worried about who we surprise. We knew what we could do inside our four walls when we first sat down for the season,’’ Brown said today.
“People might be surprised but that’s probably people who didn’t have faith in us, so we are not looking too much into that.
“We want to be in the top four and you want to win every game and to test yourself against the best, and we have got a good test this weekend against the Sharks.”
The Sea Eagles head into the round 16 clash against premiers Cronulla after having their second bye last weekend for the season.
Brown feels the final bye came at a good time.
“When you are going okay, you want to keep building as a team and keep the momentum going. For us, it probably came at a good time the bye in that we had Jake (Trbojevic) in the Origin and we had a few boys coming back from suspension, so we all have had a good rest,’’ Brown said.
“It is a long stretch home and hopefully we build towards a finals campaign, but we will just it week by week, and it doesn’t get any easier this week against a good side like the Sharks.
“They are the defending champions for a reason. If you look across the board, they have got strike power everywhere. They have five to six players coming back from Origin so it shows the quality team they are.”
Brown added he was looking forward to the challenge of tackling the third placed Sharks on their home ground and is expecting a large crowd given where both teams are on the ladder. A Manly win will see them join Cronulla on 22 competition points.
“You always look forward to the big games and this is probably one of our biggest all year,’’ Brown said.
“(Shark Park) is always a difficult place to play. It is one of those suburban grounds that you like to play at and the crowd is really in your face.
“We have got to make sure our preparation is good for a big game against Cronulla.”
Tickets for our round 17 clash against the Warriors still avaliable!
