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Marlins eye off finals jigsaw puzzle

By Adam Lucius

You mastered Pythagoras Theorem at school, eventually knocked over the Rubik's Cube and may have even worked out what makes the opposite sex tick.

That was the easy part.

For your next challenge, try to explain this year's Shute Shield format to someone.

We'll give it a go for you.

The competition's 12 teams have each played each other and are now split into a top six and a bottom six based on club championship points.

Manly are in the top six along with Eastwood, Easts, Sydney Uni, Souths and Norths.

Over six weeks those teams (starting on the same comp points they currently own) will fight it out for positions within the six.

The bottom six clubs will all play each other with the top two joining the top six in an eight-team finals system.

You still with us?

We won't even begin to start explaining the finals format because already the brain is starting to throb.

Anyway, the Marlins' journey begins against Eastwood at TG Millner Field on July 14.

"We haven't looked too much into how it all works; we just know we've got five tough games to come," winger Richard Hooper said.

"It's been like two separate seasons and this is the start of the second part.

"There will be no easy games. Every side we come up against is a contender."

Coach Tim Lane has a simple philosophy: just wins game and the rest take cares of itself.

"You can't afford to be looking at it thinking 'if we do this and that then this will happen'," he explained.

"If you keep winning then that's the easiest solution. You've got nothing to worry about."

Manly enter the championship end of the season with a last-up 29-0 win over Gordon at Chatswood Oval.      

They led 5-0 at halftime before going right on with the job after the break.

Hooper finished with his first top grade hat-trick but was hungry for even more after coming into the game with just the solitary five-pointer this season.

"I could have had four but had the ball knocked out of my hands as I was going over," he said.

"At least I'm now equal on tries with our prop Dane Maraki. He's been giving me heaps about being stuck on one try.

"It wasn't the prettiest of wins but we were always in control.

"It was a good way to finish up that part of the season."