Hannant pressures coach to play Manly - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Hannant pressures coach to play Manly

By Wayne Heming and Sam McKeith 26/05/2011 06:59:41 PM Comments (0)

Queensland bench prop Ben Hannant is putting pressure on Brisbane NRL coach Anthony Griffin to let him play against an aggressive Manly on Friday night.

Griffin was expecting Manly to take a leaf out of Penrith's book and come at Brisbane up the middle, and Hannant's presence would help bend them back.

"Absolutely. They're a really physical side and the way they've beaten some quality opposition this year with the attitude, I'm expecting nothing else," he said on Thursday.

"If they watched our game against Penrith two weeks ago, which I'm sure they did, they'll fancy their chances down our middle.

"The challenge for us is to get our attitude back.

"We got close against the Storm, but we scrambled and then we fell right away against Penrith.

"Those types of performances are not acceptable. We've got to get our attitude back and our hunger back, and the technical side of things will fall into place."

Griffin will stick solid to his policy of resting his representative players, with skipper Darren Lockyer and forward Sam Thaiday both scratched from the Suncorp Stadium double header.

But Corey Parker, who will take over the captaincy, winger Jharal Yow Yeh and possibly Hannant could back up against Manly, if they get through the next 24 hours without any dramas.

Griffin rested Lockyer, Thaiday and Hannant against Melbourne earlier this month, after they played a Test for Australia against the Kiwis, and planned to adopt the same policy against Manly.

But Hannant turned up at Red Hill for training on Thursday morning, insisting he was ready to play.

"Ben wants to play and he was out there, trying to convince us that he's right to play, which is a good sign," said Griffin.

"We'll have a chat to our physios and check the risk on that, so he's a maybe.

"He seems to have overcome a calf injury pretty well since we last saw him 10 days ago and they (physios) seem happy with him.

"We just need to make sure there's no risk there.

"If there's a risk there, he won't be playing. We'll decide that tomorrow."

Yow Yeh, who celebrated his Origin debut with a try, sat out training to rest a few bumps and bruises but is expected to play, again costing Wynnum Manly flyer Shea Moylan his NRL debut.

Meanwhile, Manly coach Des Hasler expected co-captain Jason King to start the match despite playing for NSW on Wednesday night.

"We expect he should be ok to start," Hasler said.

"(He's pulled up) pretty good.

"So if he's ok, he'll start. I think it's probably better that way."

In other news for the Sea Eagles, Michael Robertson's 139-game appearance streak is over due to an infected knee and he's been replaced by David Williams.

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