No nasty surprises in store - Riddell

PARRAMATTA hooker Mark Riddell has been gone from St George Illawarra for less than three years, but there is hardly anyone left in the Dragons' side he played in.

The mix of players in the St George Illawarra side for tomorrow's game against the Eels at Parramatta Stadium is on three levels - the experienced, the inexperienced and the just plain raw. Parramatta will field a mostly experienced line-up, but many of the players in the two teams will be facing each other for the first time.

Could that present a problem for the Eels? Will some of the younger and relatively unknown Dragons bring a surprise to the game? Riddell thinks not. He believes the Eels have sufficiently done their homework.

"We've watched a bit of tape on them this week," Riddell said yesterday. "But we haven't spent any more time on that than we would on other teams. I like to watch the Dragons, since I played for them and I've still got mates at the club, and I've been able to point out a few things about the young blokes there, to go with the tips we get from the coaching staff.

"And 'Finchy' [Parramatta halfback Brett Finch] has given us a bit of information on Jamie Soward [the St George Illawarra halfback]. I think that, with the homework we've done, we've got a pretty good handle on their strengths and weaknesses. I think we're well prepared.

"There are a lot of players in the 17 the Dragons named for this game that I didn't play with and I've only been gone from there since the end of 2004. Looking at the team, I played with Jason Ryles, Matt Cooper, Ben Creagh and Justin Poore and that's it. A lot of the guys in the team I'll be playing against for the first time."

Riddell said that while it was important to be up to date on the potential of young players in the opposition, Parramatta's priority was to ensure their attitude was right in the wake of last weekend's poor showing against Canberra. The Raiders led 24-0 after an amazing first 12 minutes and went on to win 38-10.

"We were well aware of what can happen when you go down to Canberra, but when the game kicked off we just weren't there mentally," he said. "They got a quick try, then another one … They scored four tries in a hurry and we ended up copping a hiding.

"We knew that once Canberra got a sniff down there they were dangerous, but we didn't stop it from happening. It was disappointing and getting our own backyard in order is what we've concentrated on this week. I think we've done a good job of that.

"Obviously, the way the weather is at the moment, the ground will be heavy and there's a big chance it will rain during the game. When we trained yesterday it was bucketing down and we trained pretty well, so that was good preparation for the conditions we're probably going to face."

St George Illawarra will field a similar side to the one that upset a star-studded Brisbane outfit 11-4 at Jubilee Oval two weeks back, but they will find it much more difficult at Parramatta Stadium. The Eels have a win-loss record of 5-1 at home this season and will relish going back there after playing two straight away games.