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The Titans have bounced back from one of the NRL’s most embarrassing ever defeats in style, defeating Manly 26-10 at 4 Pines Park.
For a team that has shown next to zero resilience under Justin Holbrook, this was a rare occasion where they did. Manly had all the ball early on and should have been able to go on, but instead, failed to deliver in attack and were punished.
David Fifita and the returning Kieran Foran were the architects of the win, delivering the best moments in attack, but this was a collective effort defensively. Having so comprehensively collapsed last week to the Dolphins, that will impress the coach more than anything.
The Titans will count their losses, however, after AJ Brimson left the game early with a suspected hamstring injury that will take away any lingering hopes of Origin participation.
“It was really important for us to put in a performance like that, that’s for sure,” said Holbrook. “As a team and as a club, we were all disappointed. We’ve worked so hard in preseason, started OK, had some setbacks with injuries and we’ve dealt with that. We’ve won some games of footy.
“Last week, our key guys took some poor choices and early in the week it was hard for us to get up.
“You don’t lead 26-0 if you’re a million miles off, but it felt like we’d been blown out of the park, and I said, listen – we’re doing so many things well, we’ve just got to make better choices when we’re under pressure. I thought we did that tonight.”
Manly had been rocked by a late pullout from Tom Trbojevic, who failed to recover from his groin injury last week against the Tigers, and missed him badly. No team misses their best player as much as Manly do, and that was written all over this performance.
The hosts failed to land a serious punch on their opponents, with just one try and two line breaks to show for a mountain of possession. Their go-forward took the night off, just as it did last week against the Tigers. Tonight, however, they were punished for it.
“The Titans deserved to win,” said coach Anthony Seibold. “We were patchy in the game. We started well but gave a lot of penalties away. They’re a good set start team and they made us pay. We were outplayed tonight.
“You always want your best players, but I thought young Kaeo Weekes held his hands up.
“We didn’t seem connected in attack tonight, we didn’t ask a lot of questions. He didn’t have the chance to play his best tonight.”
Punishment might come, too, for Haumole Olakau’atu after he was put on report for a crusher tackle. He did better than Tof Sipley, who was sat down for ten minutes after one of the more obvious crushers of the season.
Sometimes, this rugby league is a simple game. The Titans are masters at putting the cart before the horse at times, and have long been accused of looking for the easy way out.
Today, it was the easy way in. One doesn’t have to do much video on Manly to know that their right edge – the one with Daly Cherry-Evans, Jason Saab and Morgan Harper – is susceptible defensively and the Gold Coast ran traffic there all night.
Kieran Foran knows this side better than any, and for all the criticism of David Fifita since he joined the Titans, his record against Manly is superb.
It was a total mismatch tonight. The Titans got three tries out of it before the break and went there time and again.
Fifita was the Titans’ star. For the first time in what seems like a long time, we saw the player who burst onto the scene back in 2018.
He ran hard and broke tackles with ease, but also showed deftness of touch and expansive mentality with the ball. Alofiana Khan-Pereira, his winger, could not believe his luck.
A major factor in Fifita’s success was the work in the middle. Moeaki Fotuaika is in the sort of form that saw him picked for Origin and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui remains one of the best around.
Though Manly could get some momentum with their middles in attack, there was nothing they could do to stop the Titans’ roll.
Manly’s problems this year have largely stemmed from a flimsy defence, but that wasn’t their major undoing tonight. Sure, that right edge is still a liability, but it’s been a liability for a long time and the side has been able to throw enough back themselves that it didn’t matter. Tonight, the attack was horrendous and that left the defence high and dry.
The Sea Eagles couldn’t have asked for a better start. In the first ten minutes, they were camped on the Titans line, with the Gold Coast unable to get out. Yet, despite their well-documented defensive frailties, the Titans clung on and escaped with just a penalty goal conceded.
The difference in the attack was clear: for all that Kaeo Weekes is a talent, he’s no Tom Trbojevic, and it’s hard to replace a fullback who touches the ball multiple times per set.
Manly did create chances in that opening period, but they were a little side to side and both ended with covering tackles that knocked the winger into touch.
Weekes was struggling badly to get himself into the game. Turbo averages 38 touches per game, and his replacement was around a third of that. Needless to say, that will influence an attack because those touches have to go elsewhere.
“It’s always going to be different when Tom is not playing,” said Cherry-Evans. “As much as we try and keep things similar, Kaeo has different strengths.
“On a short turnaround we didn’t get as many reps as we would have liked. We have to go away and look at our attack, because we didn’t throw a lot of punches.”
The disjointedness is perhaps to be expected. Cherry-Evans is one of the best in the business, but Cooper Johns is a back-up and so is Weekes.
There was a mentality issue, too. Having accumulated very little field position since the opening stages, Manly scored, then got a penalty in front of the sticks.
Eight behind, they chose to take the two. The Titans would have kicked it for them, so happy they were not to have to keep tackling.
The trainer ran out immediately to encourage the penalty goal, and while the analytics tend to suggest that the two is the sensible plan, the feel and momentum of the game suggested the opposite.