Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans has urged his teammates to ignore their historic losing streak against arch enemies Parramatta to claim their opening win of their NRL season on Sunday.
The Sea Eagles have currently lost six straight to the Eels - their longest stretch without a win in their 71-year history, including the dominant Parramatta side of the 1980s.
Cherry-Evans said the Sea Eagles' approach to the match should be simple.
"The trick is not to buy into the previous encounters. It's certainly not nice hearing that a side's had six wins over you but, we can't change that," Cherry-Evans said on Thursday.
"So it'd be absolutely ridiculous for us to think about that, to dwell on that."
The Sea Eagles star took confidence from the fact that most of the squad hadn't been around the club for the entirety of their barren stretch against the Eels, which began in 2014.
Cherry-Evans and winger Jorge Taufua are the only players remaining from that season.
"Over the last couple of seasons we've had a lot of personnel changes. There's probably a lot of blokes in our side that have lost to Parramatta maybe once," Cherry-Evans said.
"We're certainly not worried about that sort of stat."
The 29-year-old did admit that the Eels remain a fierce rival of the club, which stems all the way back to when the Sea Eagles denied Parramatta their first premiership in 1976.
The Eels gained revenge in back-to-back deciders in 1982-83 but have not tasted as much success against the Sea Eagles than over the past three seasons.
Under former Manly assistant Brad Arthur, the Eels have also won their past three at Lottoland.
"They've had the wood over us the last 2-3 years, they've even beaten us a few times at Brookie. Not all the players in our squad have been there for a long time and wouldn't understand that (rivalry)," Cherry-Evans said.
"But certainly there's rivalries with the Manly club - Melbourne, Parramatta, they're certainly two of the top ones.
"I can't wait to get home this weekend and put on a good performance for our supporters and our fans. Parramatta's going to be a tough opposition, that's for sure."
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