Three Key Points: Round 16 v Sea Eagles

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs face the Manly Sea Eagles at Bankwest Stadium on Saturday July 3, kicking off at 3pm.

Below are three things to know about the matchup:

Five each from last 10

Canterbury and Manly have both won five games each from their past 10 encounters dating back to 2015. The Sea Eagles have grab victories in the last four matches, while the Dogs won five of the previous six meetings between the two teams. The Bulldogs biggest win from the last ten clashes was in round one of the 2016 season when the Dogs claimed a 28-6 victory at Brookvale. Canterbury’s biggest defeat came in 2017 when Manly scored seven tries to nil in a 36-0 win.

Dogs have youth, Manly experience

The Bulldogs head into the clash against Manly with an average age of 23.9 across the 21-man squad named, while the average age of the Sea Eagles is 24.5. Canterbury have three players aged 19 in their squad (Jackson Topine, Chris Patolo and Bailey Biondi-Odo), 13 players aged between 20 and 25 and only two players aged 30 or older (Josh Jackson and Ava Seumanufagai). Meanwhile the Sea Eagles have only one player aged 19 in their squad (Ben Trbojevic), three aged 30 or over (Kieran Foran, Daly Cherry-Evans and Martin Taupau) and 14 players aged between 20 and 25. From a games experience, Manly have a total of 1488 NRL games across their 21 players, while Canterbury’s list totals 990. The Sea Eagles have five players who have played 100 NRL games or more with the Dogs having only three players who have played more than 100 NRL matches.

Barrett’s first clash with Manly

Trent Barrett will coach against Manly for the first time as a Head Coach since he left the Sea Eagles at the end of the 2018 season. Barrett spent three years at the helm of Manly before joining the Penrith Panthers as an assistant coach in 2020.