Manly's NRL title defence starts this week.

After surviving their dramatic turmoil on and off the field - including Brett Stewart's sexual assault charges, boardroom bloodshed and even last week's on-field blow up between Anthony Watmough and Matt Orford - the Sea Eagles are now on the home stretch to the finals.

They're in the top eight, but only just, and have three games to go until the finals action starts.

And with two of those three games against top four sides, Melbourne next week and Gold Coast in the final round, Sea Eagles centre Steve Matai says the reigning premiers are ideally placed to hit the finals in top gear.

"It's massive. If we can get wins against those sides going into the semis then it definitely gives us a confidence boost seeing that they're in the top four," Matai said.

"We've started it all again. We need to build on it and next week we have a real hard challenge against the Storm.

"If we can play the way we played (against the Roosters) and get through our sets then hopefully we can come away with a win down there."

The Sea Eagles went back to basics on Saturday night in their 44-12 win over the Sydney Roosters, showing the type of discipline with ball and whistle that led to their 2008 triumph.

Matai says it is that type of performance they need to replicate and build upon as they move towards the crunch time of the year.

"That is the kind of footy that we're used to playing and we've gone away from that the past two weeks and it's good to get back to it," Matai said.

"Hopefully we can take that into next week and hopefully into the semis.

"There's nothing you can really put your finger on, one thing just led to another and we kind of fell away. But we are definitely back and we played well and we're hoping to carry that on."

Matai is the only concern hovering over the Sea Eagles camp, after suffering a head clash in the win over the Roosters which left the tough centre with a massive lump over his eye.

He will be sent for scans on Monday but the Kiwi Test enforcer is confident he will be fit to face the Storm next Sunday.

"I just got a knock on my eye. Hopefully it's not too bad," he said.

"I'm not too sure when it happened, it just went all blurry."

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