All or nothing with Marshall

Benji Marshall is a ball-playing magician but, sadly, one of his regular tricks is a vanishing act in defence.

The Kiwi five-eighth revived memories of the famous try he set up in the 2005 grand final in his NRL side’s 28-26 loss to the New Zealand Warriors at Leichhardt Oval today.

It was something to behold.

With nothing going on and his side down 16-0, Marshall took the ball in the middle of the field at the 30m line before drifting across the Warriors defence.

He danced past three defenders before shedding a fourth.

Having broken the line, the Warriors defence closed in on him with fullback Lance Hohaia rushing up and there looked nowhere to go.

For no one else maybe.

But Marshall had deliberately run diagonally to allow room for block-busting winger Taniela Tuiaki to get inside him.

The 105kg flyer did just that and Marshall’s extravagant flick pass put him through for a 50m run to the tryline to spark the home side.

The Tigers steadily grabbed the momentum and drew level at the 56th minute mark and looked to be pressing for victory.

But in the 64th minute the Warriors raided the Tigers right hand side and exposed Marshall’s deficiencies for a long-range try that rejuvenated the Kiwi outfit.

It was costly as the Warriors then marched out to a 12-point lead four minutes later.

But Marshall, 23, is no quitter having already had five shoulder operations during his injury-plagued career.

He responded by leading his side within a conversion of extra time by setting up Tuiaki for two tries in the last three and a half minutes.

It wasn’t enough and Tigers coach Tim Sheens didn’t go easy on Marshall or Tigers halfback Mathew Head.

“There were elements of our halves today which were pretty poor actually and I don’t think they will be too happy with the way that they played,” he said.

“But I think a lot of that is to do with momentum they (Warriors) played off a lot more momentum then we did.”
Sheens was in a brighter mood about the overwhelming response of the crowd to giant second-gamer Daine Laurie today.

“He has become a cult hero pretty quickly – he got a bigger cheer coming out (off the bench) than the team did when it started,” he said.

“I don’t think people should be expecting too much but it was a decent second hit out.”