Press conference: Shaun Kenny-Dowall on Round 3
Shaun Kenny-Dowall has played down any talks of added pressure of playing against his old team at Allianz Stadium this Sunday.
He dismissed any notion of media hype affecting his ability to focus on game preparation.
“We’re pretty professional, we know there is going to be a bit of hype… but we’re focused on the things that we can prepare for,” he said.
“We’re really excited about going down there and playing against some good mates and really testing ourselves against a quality team.”
“You’ve got to put all that external noise aside, we’re still going down there to get a job done. There might be a little bit of nerves on the surface, but our main focus is going down there and preparing for a win.”
In his last match-up against the Roosters, Kenny-Dowall scored a try against his former teammates in the opening minutes, but insists that the preparation going into the game was the same as any other round.
“We have certain things that we go into each game preparing for, there was no added external motivation for playing well (against his old team), you prepare and try and play every game the best you can”.
The 30-year-old winger admits that results from the first two rounds have boosted the team’s confidence, although there are still many aspects of their game that require focus.
“That’s the positive thing we’ve taken out of the last two games. We haven’t necessarily performed to the best that we can but we still found a way to win. We’ve got plenty of areas to work on... plenty of areas that we are focusing on coming into this game and we’re definitely going to be tested against the quality opposition of the Roosters.
Kenny-Dowall admits that playing against former teammates does have its advantages, as he is comfortable with their style of play, and hopes his background can further improve the team’s preparation come Sunday.
“We’ve done our homework…we probably do have a bit more knowledge on the boys we played with previously.”
“We’re a lot more prepared, we’ve added a lot more players (to the team), and we’ve come up with two wins and been competitive in games this year so it’s going to be a close challenge.”
