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Opinion
I’m a one-eyed Manly supporter. I forced myself to sit through four rounds of torture, before enjoying Manly’s late-season renaissance.
Although many lay the tribute squarely at Tom Trbojevic’s feet, success has many parents. When I reflect back on Manly-Warringah’s season, I think Turbo’s return coincided with several other important factors in Manly’s success.
First of all, I will gladly admit I was wrong about Lachlan Croker.
I thought Manly had made a serious recruitment error by releasing Danny Levi, not buying a hooker and relying on two halves to fill in at hooker in Croker and the unfortunate Cade Cust.
When not injured, Croker has been a reliable player. A solid defender, a decent kicking game, but when it comes to service out of dummy-half, he was a step behind.
He was a big reason for Manly’s pack failing to impress in the first month of the season – being a half-second slow out of dummy-half cruels your entire game.
But an injury to Cust saw him keep the reins for a month, and come May, his service improved out of sight, culminating in a wonderful dummy-half’s try against the hapless Broncos.
Karl Lawton was originally signed as a hooker option, but hasn’t needed to play a minute at hooker. I don’t have the stats to quantify the speed or accuracy of his service, but by my eye-test, Croker’s now looking like a geunuine 9. Fair play to the young man.
Jason Saab now looks like a Rolls Royce, but for the first four weeks he got zero ball, and looked completely lost at sea defensively.
He spent four weeks being trampled by the left-edge attack of successive teams, the worst of which was Penrith who ran in five tries into his corner.
The key to unlocking Saab has been the injury to Moses Suli and the emergence of Morgan Harper at centre.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
This is no knock on Suli – the lad is a big unit and a damaging ball runner. But with little time and space, I recall Suli passing to Saab perhaps once in four weeks.
But Harper has built up a wonderful partnership with Saab, and has the quick hands to pass on a ball from Daly Cherry-Evans.
In addition, Harper is a much better defensive centre, and his shutdown work on David Fifita in the Round 6 game against the Titans was a key factor in the Titans failing to score. But he probably wouldn’t have got a start without injuries to Dylan Walker and Suli.
Something else that doesn’t get a lot of airtime has been the entire renovation of Manly’s pack.
From the starting side in Round 1, Josh Aloiai, Jack Gosiewski, Curis Sironen, Andrew Davey and Morgan Boyle have all suffered long-term injuries.
This has allowed the emergence of Taniela Paseka, Toff Sipley, Karl Lawton, Sean Keppie, Haumole Olakau’atu and Josh Schuster, all young players who have been enormous in Manly’s rise.
All of them look like permanent first-grade fixtures.
Paseka had an 80-metre line-break off the kick-off against the Titans that should have delivered a try.
Sipley is a perfect impact player off the bench.
Keppie is another big strong player with great tackling technique and a big motor, and the move from the prop rotation to the second row has done his game the world of good.
Olakau’atu is a monster who has size, speed, strength, and skill. He caught and converted two bombs into tries against the Cowboys in Round 14, the second a testament to his determination to get to the line. I suspect he keeps Sironen out of the starting line-up for the foreseeable future.
Josh Schuster? A great deal has been written about him, and although his no-look pass can be a bit hit-and-miss, I’m looking forward to his future in the Manly jersey.
A season playing alongside a true professional like Kieran Foran can only do his game the world of good.
As they say, success has many parents, and in this case it’s true.
It’s undeniable that Tom Trbojevic has made the other players around him look better, but at the same time, a lot of players have emerged who have taken their first-grade opportunities and run hard with them.
The forward have become better, the backs have become better, the halves have played better.
This team looks to be on the rise, not only in this season but in seasons to come.
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