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Manly’s season remains alive after a hard-fought 24-18 win over St George Illawarra, with Daly Cherry-Evans playing a crucial role in his 300th NRL game.
The halfback pulled the strings the Sea Eagles proved their ability to attack from deep, running in three of their four tries from range.
Josh Schuster also impressed in attack, as did new recruit Matt Lodge, who laid out Blake Lawrie with a crunching shot and consistently punched the line.
The Sea Eagles broke the game open either side of half time with some scintillating, expansive footy, before seeing the result out more conservatively.
“Unreal,” Manly coach Anthony Seibold described DCE’s achievement.
“You know, he’s from Mackay so it shows what a regional kid can do – play 300 games for a Sydney club like Manly and probably be in the top three or four players in their history. That’s probably a big call as well but he’s been so consistent for a long time.”
The Dragons did stage something of a fightback – they trailed 22-8 at one point – but, not for the first time this year, lacked the flair to make the most of their opportunities.
They looked their best, ironically, when down to 12 after Jack de Belin had been sent to the bin for a hip-drop tackle on Christian Tuipulotu, who left the game with a suspected MCL injury. While a man light, Tyrell Sloan scored to give late hope to St George Illawarra, but it was too little too late.
Interim coach Ryan Carr was confused by the binning, and the fact that the game stopped for a long period while Tuipulotu’s knee was strapped, only for the player to leave anyway.
“Either leave the field or play on,” he said. “In that moment when they made an error on halfway, we lose not only possession and field position, but we lose a man for ten in the bin.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I feel so sorry for my players. I feel sorry for the fans, who have to watch the game. I feel sorry for fans of rugby league in general.
“That was a good game of footy out there and a call like that just has a huge baring and impact on the game. I’m not saying we win the game if he doesn’t get sin-binned but we shouldn’t have to go through 12 men for ten minutes and then try and find a way to win it in the last minute. We shouldn’t have to.”
He also queried a Bunker call in which Dan Russell was not awarded a try despite official Kasey Badger saying that he had the ball and was over the line.
With it sent up as no try, she could not confirm grounding, but the wording used between Badger and referee Chris Butler confused Carr.
“The wording that I was given was he’s got the ball down, we just need to figure out if he’s over the tryline,” he said.
“The next wording was Dan Russell is clearly over the tryline and it’s contradictory to a no try. In a big moment, it hurts. You’re fighting as hard as you can to get a try.
“If the wording was different then fair enough. All the wording added up to it being a try. I need to figure out why it wasn’t given a try.”
The Sea Eagles aren’t done yet, and this win keeps them just about in contention for the Finals, but even if they miss, there’s plenty to be happy about.
It’s taken a fair few false starts in the Anthony Seibold era, but the coach is starting to get a proper stamp on this footy team.
The willingness to attack from deep was clear from the first set tonight, and when Manly do it with confidence, they’re right up there with the best.
The speed on the edges, especially the right side combination of Tolu Koula and Jason Saab, is frightening and it makes total sense to play a style of footy that gets as much early ball as possible to those two.
The big men, too, know their role in this. It’s hardly rocket science, but being able to punch the line, play the ball quickly and then shift to the centres is a formula that works for this team.
Jake Trbojevic has always had one of the fastest play the balls around, while Matt Lodge has started his Manly career like a house of fire.
His arrival at Brookvale was something of a happy accident, but his ability to make contact high, knock a tackler back and then hit the deck is tailor-made for this system.
Throw in Tof Sipley and Ethan Bullemor, who played tonight, and Josh Aloiai and Taniela Paseka, who didn’t, and it’s a serious unit for this type of footy.
Crucially, it also creates maximum opportunity for Cherry-Evans, who remains imperious. His decision-making, especially in hitting short sides, is the best around and the weight of his passing, drawing in wingers and beating them in flight, would make Nathan Lyon proud.
OK, this was against a poor Dragons team, but the identity of this side does now look clear.
This all might come a little late for the Sea Eagles, who will lament defeats to the Titans, Sharks and Cowboys at home, not to mention Origin-affected losses to Parramatta and Newcastle.
Even one extra result in their favour would have turned this from a late-season purple patch into a full-on tilt at the finals.
Even so, the green shoots are there to suggest that season two of Seibold’s reign can be a good one.
Normally, when the season is gone and a side has nothing to play for, there are two options: either they knock off and become easybeats or start to play with abandon, turning a poor team into a dangerous one.
More than perhaps any other club in the NRL, the Dragon could do with being the latter. They’ve been the worst team to watch for a long time and need an outbreak of adventure to lift the mood a little ahead of Shane Flanagan’s arrival.
Carr has improved the Dragons in his time in charge, and briefly flickered into life. That was clearly going to be the best policy to defeat Manly, who can be got at.
Instead, this was a regression to the worst of the Anthony Griffin era. For the first half, they dominated the field position – two thirds to one third – but did next to nothing with the territorial advantage they enjoyed.
It was telling that the possession – measured by time – was 57% to 43% in their favour, but the Dragons had just one set more than the Sea Eagles, an indication of just how slowly they were getting through their work.
The completion rate was high, of course, but that’s pretty much the problem. More than once, St George Illawarra were in good ball and managed to take multiple hit-ups before even attempting to test Manly’s goalline defence, which has been dubious at times in 2023 and certainly could have crumbled.
It was as if the early barge over try from Frank Molo convinced them to keep trying again and again. It didn’t work.
Things did pick up after the break – pretty much in line with Tyrell Sloan getting more footy – but by then, there was far too much to do.