The Manly Sea Eagles have slumped to a season defining loss, beaten 30-16 by a spirited Canterbury Bulldogs side at ANZ Stadium on a cold and windy Sunday afternoon.
Pre-game, Des Hasler spoke of his sides need to “play with more pride and intensity in the jumper”, his comments coming on the back of a highly disappointing 2017 season to date for his troops.
He would’ve been happy with his sides start, Marcelo Montoya scoring first after some beautiful lead-up work from halfback Will Hopoate.
Trent Barrett was the happy coach two minutes later when Jake Trbojevic returned the favour, trailing through after his own break.
After 15 minutes, the score was 6-4 in favour of the visitors when they conceded back to back penalties.
Their ill-discipline came back to hurt them when, in a moment of absolute deja vu, Marcelo Montoya scored his second of the half after a nice pass from Will Hopoate.
At this stage it was 8-6 to the Bulldogs, and Manly looked decidedly sluggish, particularly in defence.
From there, the game went into a bit of a lull, before a handling error on his own line from James Graham gifted the Sea Eagles a set of six in a dangerous attacking position.
They needed to score, and Brian Kelly provided, the beneficiary of a nice short ball from Tom “Turbo” Trbojevic.
At 10-8, the game was evenly poised, but again, the Bulldogs managed to restore their advantage, this time on the stroke of halftime through Brett Morris, who scored after a nice offload from brother Josh.
Trent Barrett would’ve been livid with his side’s effort and intensity in both attack and defence in the first half, and the opening of the second would’ve done nothing to ease his frustration.
The Bulldogs were the first to register points courtesy of a Brenko Lee try again attacking Manly’s right edge.
With 30 minutes to play, the Bulldogs led by eight and the Sea Eagles looked to be in considerable trouble.
In the 55th minute, Jake Trbojevic was denied a double by a desperate David Klemmer and Josh Jackson.
Then, not five minutes later, Daly Cherry-Evans spilt a Frawley grubber into the arms of Josh Morris who scored at the other end. Mbye kicked the extras to make it 24-10 with 14 minutes to play.
He backed up his kicking effort immediately on the next set when he did extremely well to deny a rampaging Matthew Wright from scoring in the corner.
Off the following set, Josh and Brett Morris did it again – this time going end to end, Josh finding Brett unmarked and in space, the latter skipping past Tom Trbojevic to score his second for the night.
Mbye’s kick made it 30-10 and the camera’s slow, almost theatrical pan to a dejected Trent Barrett said it all.
Lewis Brown scored past some tired defenders in the 80th minute, but the consolation try did nothing to please the coach, Barrett storming out of the coaches box.
Final score 30-16 to the Bulldogs, and there will need to be a significant amount of soul searching for the Manly side in the coming seven days.
Where to from here? The Sea Eagles are in do-or-die territory all of a sudden, after seemingly cruising into a top-four spot a month ago. They are away to an average Warriors side next week.
The Bulldogs will travel north, full of confidence to battle a similarly struggling Gold Coast Titans side.
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