The Sea Eagles head out west to take on the Penrith Panthers at Pepper Stadium on Saturday afternoon, looking to bounce back from last week's disappointing loss to the Canberra Raiders.
The last time Manly faced off against the Panthers was in Round 25 of the last year where the Sea Eagles came out victors through a last minute Tom Symonds try in an enthralling 26-25 win at Brookvale Oval.
The battle at the foot of the mountains will see two of the brightest prospects in the NRL go head to head. Wingers Tom Trbojevic from the Sea Eagles and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak from the Penrith Panthers.
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Trbojevic was the shining light for the Sea Eagles in last weekend’s loss to the Raiders where he was able to bag two tries on debut. Another impressing statistic from the Mona Vale junior was his total running metres, in which he accumulated to 207m in total.
Add to that two line breaks and that’s quite the introduction to NRL for anyone.
Over at Penrith, Watene-Zelezniak burst onto the scene for the Panthers in Round 5 of last season when he made his debut against the Canberra Raiders; ironically scoring two tries in a 12-6 win.
Based on individual statistics, Trbojevic’s debut was the greater of the two with the young sea eagle making two line breaks compared to DWZ's one and almost doubling the running metres with 207m to Dallin’s 104m.
Since his debut last season New Zealand born Watene-Zelezniak has established himself as a regular in Ivan Cleary’s side, while Trbojevic will be looking to do the same in Geoff Toovey’s team from here on in.
With such little experience, it shouldn't be up to these two young men to inspire their respective teams back to winning ways; however, they have showed us already that they are possible of anything and will likely do whatever it takes to break the three-game losing streak both sides are currenlty on.
This will surely be a match up to keep your eye on as two emerging stars go head to head in a must win clash.
