Back-rower Shaun Lane is confident the team can bounce back from the nightmares of Wollongong when the Sea Eagles tackle the Melbourne Storm this Sunday.
Lane said the pain of leaking in 52 points against St George-Illawarra Dragons at WIN Stadium had been deeply felt across the team but it was important they regrouped ahead of the clash against competition front-runners Melbourne at AAMI Park.
The heavy loss to the Dragons saw the Sea Eagles slip from third to sixth place on the Telstra Premiership ladder after 20 rounds.
“We just have to move on from that experience and learn from what we did wrong. There is no time to be sad about it because we have got the Storm into the Sydney Roosters, so we have got to try and fix what we did wrong,’’ Lane said.
“There is no doubt that our effort wasn’t good enough.
“When it gets to 50 points, it really hurts. It really was an NYC score line. It was not up to scratch.
“If you want to be a top four team and you want to have premiership aspirations, you can’t be leaking 50 points a game.”
The Storm have named captain Cameron Smith to play in his 350th first grade game after being named in a 21-man squad despite suffering a minor tear to his left pectoral muscle last Saturday.
Queensland full-back Billy Slater will be rested after suffering concussion in the win over Canberra.
“The Storm are the benchmark of the competition. They have got plenty of good players and we will definitely have to be on our game,’’ said Manly prop Lloyd Perrett said.
“We will have to try and forget about last week but that is part of footy and being a professional.”
