BIG MATCH

Parramatta are capable of winning the premiership, but it would help their chances enormously if they could tighten up their defence between now and the finals.

Their coach, Michael Hagan, has presided over a dramatic, late-season improvement in a team's defensive capability before. He did it with Newcastle, before they went on to win the premiership in 2001. Parramatta aren't nearly as leaky as the Knights were that year, but Hagan is looking for the number of points his team concedes to come down.

"There's nothing critically wrong, but there's certainly room for improvement," said Hagan, before putting the finishing touches to Parramatta's preparation for tonight's game against Cronulla at Parramatta Stadium. "We're conceding an average of 20 points per game and it would be good to bring it down by, say, a try."

Newcastle went into the 2001 finals series with the worst defensive record of any team in the top eight, but their defence had tightened up over the final two rounds and the only time they conceded 20 points or more in a game from there was in the grand final. It didn't matter then. The Knights blew the Eels away to lead 24-0 at half-time, before winning 30-24.

Unless this year's Eels go on to win the competition, there is no point in comparing them to that Newcastle side, but Hagan sees similarities that he believes generate optimism. Third-placed Parramatta are hot in attack and they are getting key players back at the right end of the season.

"We had a few key blokes injured that year," Hagan said. "Andrew [Johns] was among them. He missed about 10 weeks over the second half of the season. But we got them back and made a conscious effort to improve our defence and at the same time as we were doing that our attack, which had been good all along, became very sharp going into the finals.

"If you get your attack in order it takes pressure off your defence anyway.

"Defence is about attitude as much as anything and we haven't worked any more on defence than any other part of the game. We've been concentrating on lifting the intensity across our entire game and we're going along OK. I think we're in pretty good shape.

"Nathan Hindmarsh won't play tomorrow night. He's had an ongoing problem with his toe and it's flared up a bit this week. He needs to take time out to get that right and hopefully he'll only miss one game. But at the same time we're getting three forwards back - Nathan Cayless, Josh Cordoba and Daniel Wagon.

"Chad Robinson will go into the starting side for Hindmarsh and Wagon will take Robinson's place on the bench.

"That leaves only Nathan Hindmarsh and Luke Burt as unavailable for what would be our best 17."

Hagan said it was hoped fullback Burt would be able to return from a knee injury before the finals.

Cronulla have had massive injury problems this year and have lost five-eighth Adam Dykes for this game. They are running second last, but lost by only a point at home to Melbourne on Monday and despite the short turnaround Hagan remains wary of the Sharks.

"It's one of those games where you really need your attitude to be right," he said. "It's a dangerous game, and that's the way we're treating it."