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North Queensland’s charge up the table has continued, while Manly might well done for the year following the Cowboys’ 19-8 win at 4 Pines Park.
Though the margin, in the end, was not overly large, the gulf between these sides was evident throughout and the result could not be argued. If anything, it should have been much more.
Last year, the Cowboys won this fixture in the most dramatic of circumstances, coming back from 26-12 down with eight minutes to play to win 28-26.
This year, it was a lot more emphatic. Manly regularly kicked from within their own 40m after copping a battering in defence, and when they did get into North Queensland’s end, they were repeatedly turned away.
The Sea Eagles have struggled against the better defences this year. Against the best defences in the comp, they average fewer than ten points per game. That was on full display tonight, with only kicks and one smart Josh Schuster pass able to open up the Cowboys.
The result leaves Manly needed to be almost perfect from here on out to make the finals, with seven games left and only seven wins on the board from the likely 13 that will be needed. It’s a tall order for Anthony Seibold’s men.
“We were just a little bit off with our detail,” said the coach. “We looked a little bit clunky in attack down there, so we need to be better than that. We need to maintain that effort, but we just need to be better with some of the detail.”
On the other side, Todd Payten will be steeling his side for September. After a horrible start, the Cowboys are now five unbeaten and up to ten wins, with three of their last six games in Townsville.
“We showed a fair bit of character at different moments,” he said. “I didn’t like the way we started the second half, some of our decisions put us under a fair bit of pressure. But then our (defence) held strong, so that’s pleasing.”
Manly were getting strangled long before the points tally reflected it. It was taking all that the Sea Eagles had to even stay in the game: the Cowboys made crucial errors late in sets that kept them from scoring, while both Daly Cherry-Evans and Lachlan Croker were kicking superbly to hand the ball over.
Even with that – and despite Manly opening the scoring thanks to debutant Dean Matterson – the stats suggested that the situation could not hold.
The Cowboys were averaging 40m a set to Manly’s 35m, which the commensurate effect that almost the entire game was played in the Sea Eagles’ end.
With field position assured, the points followed thanks to a break from Reuben Cotter, backing up a Val Holmes break, and Jeremiah Nanai after Tom Dearden had caught Josh Schuster ball-watching.
To have conceded just twice in the first half was a minor miracle for Manly.
North Queensland had squandered chances before the break, and were almost forced to pay for it. That they did not is testament to how much their defence has returned since that shellacking at Leichhardt Oval.
Manly had plenty of opportunity to go in front, but save one smart Schuster pass that got Brad Parker over, they were turned away. One shot from Holmes on Haumole Olakau’atu told the story, with the Maroons centre crunching the onrushing backrower as he strove for the line.
It’s a key distinction between the good teams and the bad, and indeed, the two units on display today.
Manly had, at times, some decent defence and were able to force mistakes from the Cowboys in the first half – even when under a huge weight of possession pressure.
But when they got their chance in attack, they were far too tired to do anything. At one point in the second half, they had a whole set of good ball but ended up not challenging the line before chipping to nobody.
When the Cowboys made their first second half foray into Manly’s red zone, they scored the softest of soft tries: Scott Drinkwater did his usual jink back against the line, with Aaron Woods was only able to watch on as he was bypassed.
By the 65th minute mark, the metres-per-set difference had blown out to 48-37 in favour of the Cowboys, which is as good an indicator as one could wish for to describe how in control North Queensland were, even though the scoreboard didn’t reflect it.