I seem to recall amongst my whinging about playing 3 games in Gosford this year Grant Mayer advised that the trial was actually a Melbourne Storm event and not a Manly event.
Never the less the cost of admittance was excessive given the talent that was on show. Of course the venue owner is renting the facility for that period and regardless of whether the match is marquee event or trial featuring a bunch of no names the cost of providing the venue would not change little for a crowd of 20K or 1K. If patrons only want to pay $5 admittance the games would have to played at sub standard venues and I cannot ever imagine Hasler wanting to expose his players to the potential of an injury at a venue that is not up to standard. A trial game was cancelled a few years ago at Orange or Bathurst, well at least on the other side of the ranges because of a sub standard playing pitch.
As a Manly supporter we all know Hasler's attitude to trials so to expect anything else would be folly.
