By Nathan Davis
St George Illawarra Dragons second-rower Nathan Green is keen for another crack at the NRL Auckland Nines tournament to be held at Eden Park, Auckland this weekend.
The local Renown United junior was part of the Dragons inaugural squad which contested in the last season’s corresponding tournament which were unable to qualify from the group stage.
Green believes that while last year’s results were disappointing, the team learned valuable lessons on the speed and style of play required to compete this time around.
“The game is so fast and unpredictable, you almost have to wing it when you’re out there,” said Green.
“Also the field is a lot bigger then you think it is when there are only nine blokes on it. Taking just four boys away you have a lot more open spaces and you need to throw the ball around more. We will have to work harder on defence as well.
“Hopefully we can do a lot better than we did last year; I think we only won one game.”
“We got a young squad heading over there, and with Benji leading us, hopefully we can turn some heads and show the fans what we can do.
“Benji has played a lot of touch football, and I think he will really be able to direct us around the park and tell us where we need to be.
“We have some experience in the backs with Jason Nightingale and Josh Dugan and a lot of new blokes like Eto Nabuli, Euan Aitken and Yaw Kiti Glymin who are very quick, hopefully we can give them some room to move.
“I will be more in the middle then what I was last year. That’s one thing about our side, we have a lot of backrowers who can play in the middle.
“We’ll let the backs stay out wide while we handle the middle, all the while listening to what Benji and the other halves want.”
