Watmough says Sea Eagles must build
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Watmough says Sea Eagles must build
ADRIAN WARREN
July 18, 2010 - 10:54AM
Barnstorming Manly second rower Anthony Watmough says the Sea Eagles would be silly not to build on the momentum generated by their big NRL win over Cronulla, as they prepare for a massive test against Wests Tigers next week.
Manly powered back into the eight on the back of their 48-18 mauling of the hapless Sharks at Toyota Stadium on Saturday night.
It was just their second win in their last six games.
Both coach Des Hasler and NSW and Australian representative, Watmough, who scored a first-half hat-trick of tries against the Sharks, emphasised the need to build on the momentum of Saturday night's performance.
"Definitely, we're silly if we (can't), we done a lot of good things out there," Watmough told reporters.
"The boys really worked hard for one another.
"We would be silly if we didn't. We've got to build on it.
"We got a lot of positives out of it, but we've got a lot of things we can still work on.
"A couple of errors we've been letting ourselves down on (we need to learn from that) and go from there, (like) being on the same page.
"We kicked early and let a few little hiccups through the middle again, that was probably us being a bit complacent, being a bit in front and not doing them little things to bust your butt."
Manly's next assignment is against the surging Tigers in Gosford on Saturday.
Wests overturned a 20-4 second half deficit to best Manly 26-22 in their opening round clash at the Sydney Football Stadium.
"It's a massive test, it was a big game at the start of the year and it's going to be a big game again," Watmough said.
Meanwhile, Sharks coach Ricky Stuart wants his team to put their words into action following their wretched performance on Saturday, when they trailed 36-0 at halftime.
Stuart said he was embarrassed for the die hard Cronulla supporters after watching his team's first-half display and had a "deep and meaningful" post-match discussion with his players.
"These are very, very tough situations and we have to action our talk. We can't just keep talking about getting to the game and not performing what we talk," said Stuart.
Lock Paul Gallen said the Sharks didn't react well when things went wrong.
"As soon as there's a penalty or a dropped ball or they score a try, it's like we have the mentality of 'here we go again', we can't get out of it, it just snowballs," Gallen said.
Captain Trent Barrett, who was a late withdrawal from Saturday's game with a shoulder problem, is considered a 50-50 chance of facing the Raiders in Canberra next Saturday.
Stuart drew some solace from the form of young fullback Nathan Gardner, but said he needed more help from other players.
Hasler described Cronulla as "pretty courageous" and said they had a lot of good young players.
