Manly Sea Eagles head coach Anthony Seibold has confirmed as many as eight forwards will be missing for next weekend’s clash with the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
It comes after the Sea Eagles were forced to play with just 13 players during the second half of Sunday afternoon’s brave victory over the St George Illawarra Dragons.
The club lost Toafofoa Sipley, Taniela Paseka, Corey Waddell and Reuben Garrick throughout the first half of the contest. Waddell returned for a brief period during the second half, but Manly’s remaining forwards out-worked the Red V in front of a sellout crowd at Brookvale.
Seibold confirmed post-game that Sipley has hurt his MCL again, while Paseka has a thumb injury. Garrick (who is a back) will be forced out of next week’s game with a concussion under the NRL‘s 11-day stand-down protocols, and it’s unclear if Waddell will join the injured list.
The Sea Eagles also lose Jake Trbojevic and Haumole Olakau’atu (as well as halfback Daly Cherry-Evans) to State of Origin, while a number of other players are also out.
“Jake and Haumole with Origin, obviously Chez with Queensland. Those two guys [Sipley and Paseka] will be out, we are already missing Matt Lodge, Josh Aloiai, Aaron Woods and Dean Matterson, so there are a fair chunk of middle forwards, but if we get a group of guys who want to work hard like that, work hard for each other, then we have enough speed and weapons to trouble Souths, but it will be a pretty patched side,” Seibold said during his post-game press conference.
Seibold said his side will have a ‘red-hot crack’ at Souths, who he said go into the game as favourites.
“We will go over there to have a red-hot crack at Souths. They will be favourites after their last three weeks, but it will be a great coaching opportunity and a great opportunity for some guys to get over there and have a crack because there are some guys who won’t have played first-grade this year,” Seibold said on the injury front,” Seibold said.
Manly, who have moved into the top eight on the back of Sunday’s win with a seven wins, one draw and six loss record from their first 14 games, will be out to build on the victory over the Dragons.
Captain Cherry-Evans said he was unsure what it meant at this stage, but was hoping “minimum standards” could be set on the back of it.
“I guess we will find out later in the year and even next week what it [the win] means. I’d like to think that everyone who played through today though is going to get a lot confidence out of the performance. Also, against a bit of adversity, what this group can do. I don’t know what it means long-term, but again, hopefully you see it in our response that there is a bit of a minimum standard in the way we play effort-wise,” Cherry-Evans said.