Is it Tom Trbojevic or bust for the Sea Eagles? You bet it is

They're lining up to get stuck in to the Eagles at the moment. The incoherent Brett Finch goes on a babble fest and a decent sized herd joins him. If the herd is going to follow someone then they could at least chose someone who isn't deranged.

Stuart Thomas, you’re background and expertise is in golf? Maybe you should stick to commenting on golf. Sure Manly were missing Turbo, but also other regular first graders like Thompson, Gosiewski and Boyle were missing and it showed! Once they tightened up their defence things settled but there was a lot of disjointed play in Parras 20. Watch the raiders game today and there was a replica of the play the ball penalty, Warrior player tackled and raiders penalised! Marty hasn’t been charged in over 2 years and not suspended for over 2 & 1/2 years. There’s a reason for that, he’s not a grub player like JWH or Burgess! Expert? Hmmph! Reported should keep bias and opinion out of reports and report the facts!

Hasler went off at the refs but Eels Evans went off for sinbin because Parra were in front - it was the only reason so you got one there Des.

Mate the bunker sliced it and diced it and yet that is the issue you’re stuck on?? It wasn’t as imponderable as the ridiculous play the ball penalty awarded to a the Eels when Alvaro was all over Tapau and Manly were a metre out with tackles in the bank and stitched the game for Eels. That ended up as a 12 point decision. It was that bad even fanboy Finch called it out. Any chance your not a Manly fan Larry?

couple of observations on last night's game. 1: Refs are terrified of getting a send off wrong so take the easy option of sin bin and on report. How TPJ is out for 5 games & Manly are talking about downgrading their miscreats charges to fines is ridiculous. 2: Refs want a close contest where possible, how that pinball try was awarded to Manly is totally beyond my comprehension.

I think more should have happened to Taupau and not excusing it, But I am of the belief that the result shouldn't be a huge influence on the penalty. Keary taking a wild swing at Bromwich's head deserves the same penalty as Simms swinging at Reynold's. Even someone who takes a wild and intentional shot but misses should be penalised.

Isaac Luke a Sea Eagle

Mmmm interestingness No Reyno ( I rate) no rabbits No Keary ( as above ) no chooks No sinsai smith no storm No Sivo no Parra No Hodgo no Raiders So I guess it’s a similar theme across most sides, DCE well I think he’s not doing enough and by that I’m referring to his leadership on game day, that said if you can’t get to the end of your sets your no hope and not in a position ( sometimes) to question some of these calls from refs,

Garrick bombed a few tries out there, the whole team should be disappointed with his selfish efforts. Parra were fading and vulnerable but the Sea Eagles kept mucking up the opportunities. Officiating was terrible and inconsistent as ever. Still baffled at how the commentators kept making excuses for those sickening head high tackles, no doubt the MRC will send them (along with Burgess and JWH) away with a slap on the wrist, while the likes of TPJ get rubbed out for 1/5 of the season for a lesser act. And how good is Maika Sivo, surely he has the 2019 Ken Irvine Medal in the bag now.

Manly were poor right across the park, but I would like to make three additional comments; 1. Joel Thompson has also been a very significant loss. His experience and resolute tackling has left the left side toothless. 2. Several weeks ago I made the point that Taufua is a non NRL standard winger and would likely cause Manly some significant heartbreak in the future. That happened last week against Melbourne (in the second half when he dropped several balls), and also last night when he spilled the simplest of passes for a certain try) 3.A couple of Haslers' coaching ploys came badly unstuck. The switching of Elliott to the wing was an unmitigated disaster ( three tries to his opposite). Also, the selection of Paseka as a run on 2nd rower was also a flop as he proved to be far too ponderous for that position. One slight positive did emerge from that game - that being the performance of debut second rower Sean Keppie who looked likely with his strong tackling.

I too wondered these things last night and could only imagine it was somewhat of an experiment or tactic of some sort? Maybe a very subtle attempt to purposefully mislead everyone even further about our chances this year? Far fetched I know but I'm clutching at straws... Looking forward to Paseaka next year on another night. He's shown a lot more potential the last few weeks

As crucial as Turbo is to Manly's chances his absence is a convenient excuse for Manly's performance last night. It just doesn't fit the facts. For starters the Sea Eagles won a lot of games this year without Turbo just as the Rabbitohs have had to win games without AJ, Sam Burgess, Adam Reynolds, the two Burgii and a quality replacement for Greg Inglis for half the season. The Sea Eagles finished the game with a 72% completion rate (which needs to be better) but for much of the game their completion rate hovered in the low 60 percent range and at one point dropped to 58%! That has NOTHING to do with Turbo being absent. Neither does the 18 offloads that Manly's defence allowed instead of wrapping the ball up which tired their defence and gifted the Eels opportunities to attack a broken defensive line. Additionally, missed opportunities like Jorge Taufua dropping the ball cold with the line wide open had NOTHING to do with Turbo being out. I don't understand why Taufua was given so little opportunity on Manly's left attacking edge and why Manly focused the entirety of their attack either down the right attacking edge or through the middle third of the field. FOX Sports commented that the only two times that Taufua touched the ball last night were the bombed try and from a pass called forward at the end of the game. Manly missed 22 tackles last night which isn't great but astonishingly by comparison the Eels missed 45 tackles! They also made 12 errors to Manly's 10 and only had a marginally better completion rate of 79%. All that means that Manly had their chances but couldn't convert those opportunities into points. Of course THAT is where Turbo would have made a big difference but Manly had their chances and blew them like with Taufua's dropped ball. Meanwhile Maika Sivo turned half opportunities into 4 points on 3 occasions. Rugby League is a funny game where momentum can swing like a pendulum and when passes stick and the ball bounces your way and you complete your sets and don't kill your momentum good things can happen. This breeds confidence which can then turn into opportunities which then convert into points. The Roosters blew some scoring opportunities against the Bunnies in the first half and never recovered. The same thing happened last night with Manly when Jorge Taufua bombed a certain try. Carpe diem! Make the most of your opportunities, they may not come again.

Yes, but if I started tackling people in a pub in fair, good, clean hits right under the rib cage to dislodge the beers they were holding, I’d also be at risk of being charged with assault. It’s a silly comparison.

"If someone can explain to me how a direct attack on the head of an opponent – one that sends the victim off the field via a stretcher – isn’t worthy of a send off, could they email me?" Perhaps they could CC Toddy Boy and Blowhard Beattie in on the email. How many mums turned to the old man and said , " See that's why I don't want him to play it". Its quite unbelievable to think that , if that took place in a pub on CCTV, the perpetrator would be lucky not to be jailed. But on a footy field , ya get a ten minute breather. And maybe a week or two off.

Yeah agree mate. There were multiple factors at play last night. One major one was Hasler being a little cute with selections. All week Garrick spoke about marking up on Sivo, and what he had learned from their first encounter a couple of months back. So what does Hasler do? Puts the guy (Elliot) who has filled in at fullback admirably all year onto the wing. And Garrick at the back where he has never played before (bar as an emergency mid-way through last weeks game). Elliot should never have been on the wing. The combinations were all off. Garrick should have been there. That’s where he has excelled all year. Not to mention putting AFB on an edge. Good in theory, but he hasn’t played there before. And again the plays looked clunky as players got in each other’s way. With Taupau likely suspended, AFB will return to the middle so that experiment on the edge has ended. I just hope we see Garrick return to the wing. Elliot has actually been pretty good at the back. No idea why that last minute change was made. Paseka and Taupau will be huge losses next week. But Manly are a resilient side. The fact they could have still won last night despite losing multiple players throughout the match, and playing terribly, gives me some hope for next weekend. But they need to lift and Hasler needs to pull his finger out.

Putting this form slump entirely in Tom Trbojevic absence is ignoring the fact that they have other key injuries and issues. Thompson is a huge loss, DCE is playing with injury, Sironen has just come back into the team and has picked up injury last night again. Turbo wasn’t the reason they are dropping so much ball over the last three weeks. His absence also didn’t explain the ridiculous penalty awarded to the Eels. Manly have limped toward the end of the season and are reaping the cost of a really tough campaign. Also as I’ve said before losing a player of Toms attacking quality would cost any side not just Manly so I don’t buy the one player team theory. It’s sad after such a great resurrection this year but I fear next week will be as far as this campaign goes. However if someone told me at the beginning of the year that a top four spot was possible in the last two weeks of the regular season.. I’d have grabbed that outcome any day.

One of the last players to get sent off for a high tackle was JWH in 2013. He was suspended for five weeks despite George Rose dropping into the hit. Six years later this bloke is still smashing players as they are falling. I'm watching the little screen on the left where Liam Knight has a chance to send the Chooks winger into next week as he drops into the tackle but doesn't injure the bloke despite probably hitting him high. Instead of wondering why Tapau wasn't sent off , I'm wondering why anyone is still making excuses when JWH continues to maul or attempt to maul his opponents. What he did to Ponga was atrocious but he fools some of the critics with his underhanded tactics. Sure, send Tapau off but only after doing it to a dozen other players this season.