Siua Wong is eager to test out the true strength of Braydon Trindall’s troubled shoulder as the Sydney Roosters right edge lick their lips at the prospect of sending traffic at Cronulla’s injury-plagued playmaker.
Trindall returned for last Saturday’s elimination-final win over North Queensland and emerged unscathed after missing the last month with a dislocated shoulder.
The 27-year-old’s importance to the Sharks’ attacking flair is underlined by the fact he has 31 try assists for the year and does the majority of their kicking.
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Trindall has insisted the pain is nothing new to him and back-rower Wong is willing to put that claim to the test as he and centre Rob Toia play off Daly Cherry-Evans.
“It’s obviously a 13 v 13 sport. It’s going to take all 17 of us to beat the Sharks this weekend,” Wong said.
“But I feel like if the cue is there to go after him, then we’ll definitely make sure we take those cues.
“Our right edge, we want to take on the whole edge, I guess there’s always a mentality within the whole league that you want to be better than the opposite number.
“For us as a collective as a right edge, any edge we come against we like to think we will be the one on top.”
Wong and Toia have formed a lethal combination down the right for the Roosters this year and both players have indicated to coach Kristian Woolf they are committed to declining other nation’s advances to play for Tonga at the World Cup.
The Roosters will play Woolf’s Dolphins if they advance past the Sharks to a preliminary final following last week’s narrow loss to Penrith.
“Being able to go toe to toe with the premiership favourites was a big takeaway from that game,” Toia said.
“I think some of the boys from Penrith did mention a few times, ‘we’ll see you in the GF’.
“I didn’t think of it too much but then if we win our games we’ll meet them in the GF next time if both teams go through.
“It showed how different the finals series is because we got one over them early in the year and the resilience they had to fight back.”
