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Manly confident in duo

Manly confident in duo

09/24/2011 12:17:17 AM

Manly are confident they will have both Tony Williams and Steve Matai available for the grand final despite the pair being placed on report within minutes of each other during Friday night's comfortable 26-14 preliminary final win over Brisbane.

Second-rower Williams is facing a careless high tackle charge for his shot on Broncos winger Jharal Yow Yeh in the 65th minute while Matai may be booked for dangerous contact (leading with knees) after attempting to stop the same player from scoring two minutes later.

Williams has an unblemished record at the judiciary and will escape suspension if his tackle is graded no higher than one.

Matai has a string of offences in recent seasons and may not make the decider if the match review committee take a dim view of his altercation with Yow Yeh.

But Sea Eagles coach Des Hasler was optimistic neither player will have a case to answer.

He said of Williams' tackle: "If anything it might be a grade one or it might not even get graded."

"We will see. He's a bit of cleanskin."

"I think with Steve Matai, probably a penalty will be sufficient."

Hasler received support from Brisbane counterpart Anthony Griffin, who had no real problem with either tackle.

"Jharal's alright. He's a bit shaken up but we got the penalty for both of them," the Broncos coach said.

"The league will look after that (possible charges) now."

Manly jumped out to a 16-0 lead after 22 minutes and never looked back en route to a clinical victory.

Every time the Broncos threatened to mount a comeback, the Sea Eagles responded to keep them on the back foot.

They now enter their third grand final in five years.

"I am very proud of the side and the club but we've still got one game to go," Hasler said.

"We won't be getting too carried away with ourselves."

"It's not as if they haven't been there before so that will help."

"We're in there with a chance."

Skipper Jamie Lyon, who produced a miracle tackle to deny Matt Gillett a try in the dying stages, added: "It's always hard to get to grand finals and it's a great achievement."

"You always like to win them as well. We'll have a good week and knuckle down and hopefully we can play our best footy next Sunday."

Brisbane were hammered in the penalty count early and had a number of contentious decisions go against them.

But Griffin had no beef with the referees.

"Everyone wants to talk about the calls but I don't want to talk about the calls ... we got beat fair and square there tonight," he said

"We ain't complaining about the penalty count or whatever, we just weren't good enough tonight."

The Sea Eagles get strike forward Glenn Stewart back for the grand final, along with young bench player Darcy Lussick.

Manly will play the winner of Saturday night's Melbourne-Warriors preliminary final.

 
Photograph Copyright : Getty Images

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