Blacktown Workers Sea Eagles Coach Steve Hales is confident there is plenty of talent in his team to turn around a slow start to the Canterbury Cup competition.
The Sea Eagles sit in 11th place in the 12 team competition with one win, a draw, and five losses after seven rounds ahead of tomorrow's clash against the ninth-placed Canterbury Bulldogs at Lottoland.
Making the challenge a little more difficult for Blacktown Workers is the fact that they will go into the Bulldogs game without two of their best players in recent weeks in exciting winger Abbas Miski and five-eighth Lachlan Croker.
Croker scored a double in his return to the NRL in the win over Canberra last Saturday while Miski will make his NRL debut for Manly against Canterbury tomorrow after being called up to replace the injured Jorge Taufua.
Powerful forwards Taniela Paseka and Haumole Olakau'atu have also been getting plenty of minutes under the belt in recent weeks after returning from injury.
Paseka (pictured) scored two tries in last week's 44-22 loss to competition leaders Mounties with one of his tries coming from just sheer strength from a penalty tap.
"The boys are hurting because of where we sit on the ladder,’’ Hales said.
“We have had some players go up into Manly’s NRL squad and there are a few missing through injury but there is still plenty of talent within the squad,'' Hales said.
“Unfortunately we haven’t had the same 1, 6, 7 and 9 each week and you can see in terms of combinations that we have been a little bit clunky. We are not taking opportunities and owning those big moments in games.
“We know we need to win a footy game again very soon.”
Canterbury Cup Rd 8
Blacktown Workers v Bulldogs
Saturday, May 4, Lottoland, 12.45pm.
