Matterson: Long preparation for Eels clash an advantage

Wests Tigers forward Ryan Matterson says the long turnaround from Thursday's win over the Brisbane Broncos to the Easter Monday clash against the Eels can have a big advantage for his side as they look to consolidate their spot inside the top eight.

Having played three games in the space of 12 days between Round 3 and Round 5, Wests Tigers players will now enjoy an 11-day break heading in to the traditional Easter Monday clash, with Matterson highlighting the advantage that can have.

"It's been pretty exciting getting a couple of those good wins," Matterson said.

"There were still a few games we would liked to have won so that's going to be a learning curve for us, but we'll still go in to this week against Parramatta pretty confident and excited to play at the brand new stadium.

“There’s a few areas that we need to improve on, especially our defence.

"We could have controlled the game a lot better last week with our attack too — our completion rate in the first half wasn’t as good as we wanted.

“The short turnaround we’ve had in the past couple of weeks has put the body a bit behind, but we’ve played those two games now and have the 10 days to recover.

"We’re going to be working on our game and really fine tuning the areas for improvement.”

Having set himself the pre-season goal of becoming a leader to the young forwards at Wests Tigers despite only being 24 himself, Matterson says he's enjoying his new role at the club and enjoying setting the example with his actions so far.

“I feel like I want to be a leader in this team, and this is led by my actions," he said.

"I’m pretty happy with how I’m going so far but obviously there’s some areas for improvement in myself. I’ve been working with the coaching staff to get those points down — to keep striving and performing week in and week out.

“Michael Maguire wants us to focus on ourselves and that’s a very good point for us to remember now. Parramatta are a strong outfit so we’ve just got to defend well and complete it in attack, and I think that’ll go real far to winning the game.”