Manly vow to take pressure off Turbo amid latest injury
Jasper Bruce |
Manly are eager to take the pressure off Tom Trbojevic to be their hero on return from injury as statistics reveal just how heavily past Sea Eagles teams have relied on the superstar fullback.
Sunday’s round-eight clash with Parramatta is the first of at least six Trbojevic will miss with the latest hamstring injury of his heavily interrupted NRL career.
The injury shapes as another defining point of Manly’s season, a month after the club fired coach Anthony Seibold.
Since the beginning of 2022, Manly have won 34 of the 62 games Trbojevic has played for a 54.9 per cent winning rate, but only 15 of 42 (35.7 per cent) when he has been sidelined.
Their 54.9 per cent winning rate with Trbojevic, if maintained across a full regular season, would have been enough to qualify Manly for three of the past four finals series.
Instead, they have made the cut only once, in 2024, with the task to maintain form in Trbojevic’s absence proving too lofty in other seasons.
Manly winger Jason Saab insists the resurgent Sea Eagles have no point to prove without Trbojevic, but says there’s plenty of motivation to nail the next six to eight weeks.
“It’d be good for Turbo too, he’d probably feel a lot less pressure (rather than) coming back thinking, ‘It’s got to be me that has to get us into that form again’,” Saab said.
“I still don’t think anyone’s really fussed, the idea of ‘we have to prove a point without Turbo’.”
Senior players are promising to lead the charge without Trbojevic, who had helped Manly win their first three games under interim coach Kieran Foran.
“A lot of us (in) leadership are trying to take a lot of pressure off him,” said prop Siua Taukeiaho.
“Take a bit of the load and try to balance it in our team. That’s our main focus for this week.”
By the numbers, Trbojevic has been more influential on his team’s win rate than superstars Nathan Cleary, Kalyn Ponga and James Tedesco at their respective NRL teams.
Since the start of 2022, Penrith have won 77.5 per cent of games with Cleary compared to 68.6 without him, while Ponga boosts Newcastle’s winning percentage from 34.1 per cent to 44.6 per cent.
The Sydney Roosters improve from winners 42.9 per cent of the time to 58.8 per cent when Tedesco plays.
All figures are dwarfed by Manly’s improvement in win percentage with Trbojevic at hand.
But Manly have reason to believe things might be different during Trbojevic’s current lay-off after nailing their first assignment without him.
The Sea Eagles shook off Trbojevic’s absence when he went down mid-game against North Queensland as speedster Tolu Koula slotted to fullback in a huge 38-6 win.
“I don’t think anyone really even thought, ‘Oh we don’t have Turbo!’ type of thing. I think we showed that too,” Saab said.
“We’re always going to be a better team when Turbo’s in the side, but we’ve got some great replacements.”
AAP