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Better things ahead for Eels: Finch

By Adrian Warren 01/04/2009 08:19:27 PM Comments (0)

Parramatta halfback Brett Finch is predicting an improved attacking performance in Friday's NRL clash against the Roosters and expects his partnership with five-eighth Jarryd Hayne to blossom.

Finch admitted the Eels had been struggling for cohesion in attack through their first three games despite recording successive wins over South Sydney and Canberra.

However, he acknowledged that ultimately the responsibility for fluency rested with Hayne and himself.

Hayne has played only three competition games at five-eighth and attracted some negative attention from supporters during last week's game against Canberra.

Asked about his combination with Hayne, Finch said: "It's continuing to improve.

"I think our whole team's attack is struggling at the minute, which is probably not helping Jarryd and myself, but hopefully we can find a bit of rhythm in coming weeks and continue to improve.

"Probably on the weekend we were a bit flat and in the end it's back to Jarryd and myself to get the team going in the halves and we've probably taken the responsibility but it hasn't been as good as we've wanted and I think you will see an improved attack on Friday night."

Finch said he hadn't tried to offer Hayne too much advice on his new role.

"Obviously he's not playing the normal five-eighth role, so I don't think I need to burden him with any extra information or pressure," Finch said.

"He's just going to hopefully try and play his natural game and it's probably more for me to take control a bit more and Haynesy can just jump in wherever he wants."

Eels captain Nathan Cayless felt his team had huge scope for improvement despite winning their last two games.

"We've got a whole lot of improvement, Jarryd is still warming to his position, him and Finchy probably haven't built their combination yet," Cayless said.

"As a team, the way that (Parramatta coach) Daniel (Anderson) wants us to play, we're still adjusting to that, so it's going to take a bit of time, but we need to keep winning games along the way and there's going to be times where we play really well and we're going to lose, so on the weekend we played poorly but we were able to scrape home for a win."

Cayless was also looking for a better attitude from his side and said Anderson was "pretty straight forward" in his reaction to their hard earned win over Canberra.

"To be honest this week felt more like a loss than a win, everyone is looking for a much better performance this week."

Finch and Cayless were both wary of playing an understrength Roosters side missing Willie Mason, Nate Myles and Anthony Minichiello.

"The last time we played them was here (at Parramatta Stadium in 2008) when they had their Origin players out and they really gave us a touch up," Cayless aid.

"We've just got to get back to our basics and make sure that our attitude is right this weekend, it probably wasn't as good as it should have been on Saturday night, especially for that first half."

Finch said the understrength Roosters "spanked" Parramatta last year, so they wouldn't be falling into the same trap of taking them lightly.

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