'that's My Bloke' - A Strategy To Beat Eels
Illawarra Mercury
Friday August 4, 2006
WINGER Jarryd Hayne is one slippery Eel the Dragons will have to watch closely tonight.
The red and whites' defence has been brittle at times in their last two outings.They let in six tries last weekend during the 34-24 loss to competition leaders Melbourne, having leaked five tries against the Raiders in Canberra the previous round.And Parramatta have a few players in their ranks who know how to score tries, quintessential young gun Hayne, who has 13 tries to his name this season, foremost among them."He's scored a lot of tries and he's a good strong young kid so we'll have to keep an eye on him," Dragons fullback Ben Hornby admitted yesterday. "Across the park we just have to defensively improve and hopefully we can score some points."We'd like to improve our line speed. And just mainly go to bodies when we do go up. Just go and say 'that's my bloke' and go to him. So that's our main area of improvement."Hornby potted two crucial field goals in the Dragons' 8-1 win over the Eels at a wet and miserable Oki Jubilee Stadium back in round 13.And, with showers forecast for today, the 26-year-old is confident the red and whites will prevail should tonight's game be another close encounter. "Against the Bulldogs and against Melbourne we were very close to winning," he said. "If we had have just executed a bit better we could have got away with both of those games."
© 2006 Illawarra Mercury