Fensom looks to fire off bench

COWBOYS forward Shaun Fensom is banking on North Queensland’s interchange to pack a vital punch after doing the job against the Titans.

Fensom ran 122m from 35 minutes and along with fellow interchange Coen Hess ( 140m) provided no let up after starting forwards Jason Taumalolo ( 225m) and Scott Bolton ( 147m) laid the platform.

Fensom did not play when the Cowboys and Parramatta met in Round 9, but shared the pain of seeing his team cut to shreds up the middle.

“We’ve had a look at the video and how they played and where we went wrong, and we’ve been training hard to fix those areas,” Fensom said.

“They’ve got the individual players we need to be wary of, but we need to be better across the board.

“There’s been a lot of games since they beat us and we’ve improved a lot.

“We’ve talked about bringing a lot of energy off the bench and we did that last weekend, and we’ll need to do that this weekend as well.”

Reeling from a 48- 10 loss to the Roosters in Round 10, the Eels have since played three tight matches and won their past two, including last weekend’s gritty and gutsy 32- 24 win against the Warriors.

Co- captains Tim Mannah and Beau Scott, who has had running battles with Johnathan Thurston, and Nathan Brown – who made 186m against North Queensland a couple of months ago – are among Parramatta’s hit men who Fensom believes can turn Darwin into an 80- minute grind.

“It’s a bit week,” he said.

“Whoever sticks it out for the 80 is probably going to come away with the points.

“That’s where we’re going to have to be better than them; playing for the whole 80 minutes and not having lapses.”

A bumper crowd is expected at Darwin’s TIO Stadium as both clubs look to bank valuable wins. like that each