Manning keen for repeat performance

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning hopes lightning can strike twice when his side meet the New England Patriots in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Manning led the Giants to a famous Super Bowl victory over the Patriots in 2008 with a last minute drive, while New York has the recent form over New England – clinching a 24-20 win when the sides met in November.

“I think it feels like we’ve played them a decent amount in the last couple of years,” Manning said.

“We’ve played them in the Super Bowl, we’ve played them in the regular season, we have played them close in all of those games so I think you understand that they are very talented.”

“They have the ability to score a lot of points, their defence has the ability to keep you to a minimum of points so it’s going to be a great challenge for both sides.”

Manning said he still sees occasional glimpses of the 2008 Super Bowl and feels he is better equipped to handle the build up to Sunday’s game in Indianapolis because of it.

“It feels very similar,” he said. “I think you’re just excited to be here.”

“Besides that, I think it still comes down to you. You have a great feeling everything is going to work out perfectly, you still want to prepare hard, get all your studying in, make sure you’re doing everything to get your team ready to play.”

“I think that’s still the mentality, it’s all going to come to making sure we play our best football on Sunday, that’s the ultimate goal.”

Eli’s older brother, Colts quarterback Peyton, is normally the talk of Indianapolis but he has been forced to take a back seat having missed the whole season with a neck injury.

Now, it will be Eli who steps into the spotlight on Sunday.

“I really haven’t thought much about playing in Indianapolis,” Eli said.

“It’s not really a time to reflect right now on that so I think it’s just a matter of trying to get ready for the Patriots, trying to get ready to play this game”

“We’ll look back on the fact that (I’m) playing a Super Bowl in the town where Peyton plays NFL for the Colts, we’ll look on that later.”