Like those men and their mutts, I reckon the injury toll and suspensions will cruel Manly’s chances of winning. Especially the long-term suspension to Steve Matai who, regardless of what you think of him (and what I think of him would get the paper sued were I to put it in print here), presents a scary prospect to the opposition. I know if I was lining up against him I’d be crapping my dacks and, after each tackle, checking to ensure my head was still attached to my neck.

Something else those men and their dogs have been saying is that Manly will get lapped on Sunday, with the Dragons will put on something like a gazillion points.

I tend not to agree with them on that score. Sure, Manly are really up against it big-time. But I’m sure they’re going to throw everything they’ve got at the Dragons. See, nobody rates the Sea Eagles a chance, which means they’ve got nothing to lose. If they get beat, that’s okay, if they win, they’ve pulled off a huge upset. All of which means they can fling the crazy passes around like nobody’s business, a plethora of chip kicks and even the short 10 restarts they did last time. These Sea Eagles just aren’t going to die wondering.

Also, it’s worth casting your mind back to the Round Nine match this season - both teams had a stack of players backing up from the previous night’s rep games. Plenty of people figured that would cause problems for Manly - but it didn’t. Instead they scored a 24-6 win - our biggest loss of the season.

I’m not suggesting the set-up of that game is exactly like this one - for instance, in this weekend’s match our players will be fresh and not backing up from the stupidity of City-Country. But, to me, it does point out that Manly are never quite as dead as you think they are. That you write them off at your peril.

I’m writing them off a bit - because I don’t think they can win. But I’m not writing them off totally because I believe they’ll put a few questions to the Dragons. And a bit of a tough game will help the Dragons. See, if we win this game we get a week off and one win away from a grand final berth. What you wouldn’t want with a week off was for your previous game to be easy. You want to have a strong hit-out to keep you primed for finals footy. And Manly will give us that for a majority of the game.

The other games: Titans, Tigers and Panthers.