Sea Eagles front-rower Brenton Lawrence today faced the media to talk about the upcoming game against the Dragons, the welcomed return of club stalwart Anthony ‘Choc’ Watmough and claims of player disharmony.
Despite being on top of the NRL table, Lawrence assured everyone that the Sea Eagles aren’t getting ahead of themselves heading into Monday night’s game.
“We are not a side that gets carried away with where we are. I think we will go out there looking forward to taking on a pretty good football side,” he said.
“We never really go into a game concerned with how a side is placed on the ladder, especially the competition this year where everyone can still make the top eight”.
‘BJ’ was quick to heap praise on the Dragons, who have won their last three games in a row since rookie coach Paul McGregor took over from Steve Price a few short weeks ago.
“It’s amazing what a new coach can do to a side with essentially the same players.”
While McGregor may have won the past few games with the same players, the Sea Eagles will welcome back Anthony Watmough to the side for the first time in five weeks, after receiving a suspension in Game Two of State of Origin.
Lawrence agreed the impact of Choc was a big positive for the side, despite being the current NRL leaders.
“Yeah Choc’s (Watmough’s) return is a big boost, you can’t deny how big he is too our team”.
“In saying that, I’m really proud of what the players have done over the past month in his absence”.
When asked about the rumours of internal issues at the Club, Lawrence was keen to point out that the players are solely focused on performing well.
“All we as players are concerned with is the football team, the outside influences really don’t filter down into the playing group”.
“We are concerned about showing up at training, doing our media, doing our weights and playing our games”.
Furthermore, when questioned about player disharmony at the club, he said, “We are the tightest bunch of blokes I’ve played with”.
“You can see that from week to week when we are side by side making tackles, pushing in support with each other and when someone makes a break, there are 5 or 6 blokes chasing up his tail to help him out”.
