Post-Game Discussion Bulldogs V Manly [Finals Week 1, 2024]

  • We had an issue with background services between march 10th and 15th or there about. This meant the payment services were not linking to automatic upgrades. If you paid for premium membership and are still seeing ads please let me know and the email you used against PayPal and I cam manually verify and upgrade your account.
  • We have been getting regular requests for users who have been locked out of their accounts because they have changed email adresses over the lifetime of their accounts. Please make sure the email address under your account is your current and correct email address in order to avoid this in the future. You can set your email address at https://silvertails.net/account/account-details
  • Wwe are currently experience some server issues which I am working through and hoping to resolve soon, Please bare with me whilst I work through making some changes and possible intermittent outages.
  • Apologies all our server was runing rogue. I managed to get us back to a point from 2:45 today though there is an attachment issue i will fix shortly. Things should be smooth now though
Game Information

Bulldogs
Vs
Sea Eagles
22 Accor Stadium
15 Sep 2024 16:05
80:00 minute
24

Match Stats

globaleagle

01100111 01100101
Staff member
Premium Member
Tipping Member
Jake -

Manly star and NSW captain Jake Trbojevic has joined ABC Sport's John Gibbs after a famous finals win.

"Oh, Gibbsy! That was a great Manly win mate, honestly," he says.

"They probably dominated field position, everything during the game … And we won, mate!

"At half time, 16-12, but we had nothin' mate … I'm lost for words Gibbsy."
 

mickqld

Sea Eagle forever
Tipping Member
Gotta give credit to Ciraldo, he didnt make excuses for the loss, he didnt blame this or that he in-fact gave us praise and praised Tom and Chez and he said even though Turbo wasnt fully fit, his experience shone through and said having players like Chez and Turbo and their experience were the difference today. He didnt whine like Robinson does all the time and he had reason to. The dogs will be a much better side next year for the experience thats for sure. He is a good young coach
Yes agreed. He's one of the few likeable opposition coaches. Shame he's at the stinking dogs.
 

Ron E. Gibbs

First Grader
Reminder if you see this on social media to not waste your time in the comments, all the bulldogs fans whinging DCE should of got 10 or miss a week or two but are conveniently forgetting about Curran striking first, fkn losers.
Also conveniently forgetting that Mahoney was eventually placed on report for striking at Rueben's head when he was on the ground, which is what sparked the whole thing. If the ref had just blown his whistle, nothing more would have happened.
 

Terry Zarsoff

First Grader
Don't wanna harp on about it, but just rewatched the game (I was at Accor last night).
How the fark was their first try awarded? Surely that was an obstruction from Xerri? He didn't run through the line at all.
Also, suss on the Crichton try as well, but I can live with that one.
Not to mention the forward pass from the dummy half, ‘Ma’ Honey, in the lead up to that try.*

Perhaps that’s why the pass from Hoppa to Bully was not called forward in the lead up to the latter’s try.

*Which no one mentioned in either telecast. Unlike the Bullemor try, which got a mention from Foxtel’s resident florist.
 
Last edited:

The Who

Journey Man
I was at the match, which was a cracker. But The Clunker really hinders the spontaneity of the moment. It has caused the 'Player Oscars' where they stay down and act hurt to allow a video review of the action. Unfortunately it works most times, with The Clunker unable to understand that accidents do happen in rugby league.
But the agony of waiting for The Clunker to award a try sucks the excitement from the sport. The PA system at Olympic Stadium is terrible and I couldn't hear if The Clunker was vocalising his CSI of the try or not but it took an age before it was awarded.
The Clunker has been a failure. It is the worst aspect of our sport.
 

manly al

First Grader
Inspirational win on so many levels , had to hang in there and naturally up against it for the majority of the game and eventually showed they were good enough to overcome so much adversity .
Dogs tried to apply the regular Panthers style of swarming and relentless defence and did throw Manly off their game for long stages but their resilience and patience paid off big time and subsequently the fantastic win
Something like a 70 - 30 possession in the Dogs favor in the i st half and yet were still in the game , sure that that helped with a lot of self belief that they could still pull it off and with a bit more ball in the 2 nd half .
Really paid off with a bit of variation in attack to counter the Dogs aggressive type defence and not before time .
Probably a big part of the win was restricting the Dogs scoring when they had so much possession in the i st half and being so much under the pump in general. Lawton in particular seemed to work his backside off during this tough time .
Wraps all round of course , so many crucial and exceptional individual efforts to eventually make the difference .
Think that Garrick 's extra effort [ was it playing the ball ] then lapping around to back up Turbo 's mid field run for Koula 's outstanding try pretty much typified the sides overall high commitment outlook , D C E , some really effective plays when it mattered .
Haumole and Paseka really giving the side a lift .
Would have expected Turbo to have made better contact with Kikau in normal circumstances and not sure why he came into the front line which resulted in Crichton "s try but a courageous effort just to be out there of course and instrumental in the critical plays that finally got Manly home .
Another high stakes test next week but plenty to saviour after yesterday "s huge win and if they can repeat that type of self belief that they had in spades , have the ability to compete at any level
.
.
 

TJ55

Bulldogs tragic living in heart of Manly-Warringah
Gotta give credit to Ciraldo, he didnt make excuses for the loss, he didnt blame this or that he in-fact gave us praise and praised Tom and Chez and he said even though Turbo wasnt fully fit, his experience shone through and said having players like Chez and Turbo and their experience were the difference today. He didnt whine like Robinson does all the time and he had reason to. The dogs will be a much better side next year for the experience thats for sure. He is a good young coach
Thanks mate appreciate the respect and credit to Ciro, all the best in the finals
 

manly al

First Grader
Bully has been running like a thoroughbred race horse once out in the open for a couple of his recent tries .
Bit of discussion in trying to bring in a new prop or resigning Lodge but again certainly hope that there are some serious behind the scenes efforts to keep Bully longer term ,
 

TJ55

Bulldogs tragic living in heart of Manly-Warringah

Terry Zarsoff

First Grader
From Adam Pengilly, SMH:

Anatomy of a Manly miracle: DCE went all-in and hit the jackpot

By Adam Pengilly
September 16, 2024 — 11.38am

There comes a time in every NRL final when, in the words of Kenny Rogers, you need to make a choice.

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em;
Know when to fold ’em;
Know when to walk away;
Know when to run.

We can assume Kenny might not have been a fan of the greatest game of all, but even he could have recognised Manly might have been pushing their luck thinking they could run when they did.

Buried deep in their own end, with the clock ticking and the Bulldogs defence swarming, off one of their worst yardage sets all season, who would have thought it would actually be a good idea to run the ball on the last tackle? Daly Cherry-Evans did. Tom Trbojevic did. Anthony Seibold did.

Sixteen seconds later, Manly speedster Tolu Koula - who once ran the 100 metres in 10.58 seconds as a schoolkid - had dived over to score a try shoeless. He was the seventh pair of hands to touch the ball on the play.

Turns out it was the right time to run.

IMG_0199.jpeg


“We always talk about playing every play and not dying on one,” Manly centre Reuben Garrick says. “That’s the perfect example.”

Here’s how the Sea Eagles produced one of the great finals tries of the NRL era at Accor Stadium on Sunday.

Going nowhere fast
Ask any NRL coach the key to bringing the ball out of your own end, and most will start and finish their answer with the back five. They want strong ball runners in their centres and wingers, particularly at the end of each half, to help the tiring forwards.

The only problem for Manly on Sunday was the set before their miracle try, they were going nowhere.

It started with featherweight teenage winger Lehi Hopoate fielding a kick and being smothered on his 10-metre line, and for the next four tackles, each of his fellow members in the back five - Trbojevic, Koula, Tommy Talau and Reuben Garrick - each tried to make metres. No Manly forward took a run. At the end of the set, the backs had only made 19 metres.

So, who in their right mind would think there’s a chance to risk it all on the last when you’re not even 30 metres out from your own line?

“It was definitely off the cuff footy,” Cherry-Evans says.

What prompted them to run?
Garrick’s final play-the-ball was the key. For the first time in the set, he left a couple of defenders in his wake with Reed Mahoney and Viliame Kikau both not able to recover to marker before Garrick gets up to trigger the ruck. That immediately makes two Bulldogs defenders vulnerable on the play.

Hooker Lachlan Croker shovels the ball to Cherry-Evans, but instead of punting it for territory, he looks back to his inside where, until that point, a largely ineffective Tom Trbojevic was lurking. Surprisingly, Cherry-Evans throws the pass to Trbojevic, who also opts against kicking and surges through the middle and past a diving Jaeman Salmon.

“At that moment in the game, I thought it was an opportunity we had to take,” Cherry-Evans says. “They were winning field position most of the game. We got a quick play-the-ball and they had one marker. They over-chased and I thought the space was going to be up the middle, but it closed pretty quickly.”

Trbojevic beating Salmon immediately compresses the Bulldogs’ defence as Mahoney and Sam Hughes scramble to get hold of him.

But maybe the key to the entire play is his offload, which is fielded by Garrick, the same man who played the ball and crucially kept alive in the play.

“I just saw ‘Turbo’ take off and usually good things happen around him,” Garrick says. “He’s a pretty smart footballer. Everyone knows that and when he sees an opportunity, we try to jump on the back of him. I just wanted to be some support there.”

Quick hands the key
It can take years and years of repetition for the most basic of skills to show up under pressure. In a couple of split seconds, Garrick and Luke Brooks - playing his first finals match more than 4000 days after his NRL career started - proved why.

Garrick, under pressure from the defence, quickly sends a pass out to Brooks who, likewise, has to catch and throw it swiftly out wider to evade Stephen Crichton, the best defensive centre in the game.

IMG_0201.jpeg

Tolu Koula celebrates the win with Lehi Hopoate and Luke Brooks.CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

“I felt someone coming to me, and we had a bit of space out there,” Brooks says. “The [Canterbury] winger [Jeral Skelton] drops back so we knew there was a bit of room out there.”

Turbo starts it, Burbo keeps it going
The play might have started with one Trbojevic having a huge hand, but what happened next with the youngest Trbojevic might have been just as equally crucial.

Ben Trbojevic, who’d only been on the field for less than 10 minutes, catches the ball with ample space in front of him. Skelton and Bulldogs fullback Connor Tracey have dropped back anticipating the kick.

But instead of chewing up some ground himself, Trbojevic quickly decides the wise move is to get it to the faster Koula, running just five metres before passing the ball to his teammate inside the Bulldogs’ half. It takes the scrambling Canterbury halfback Toby Sexton out of the equation because he can’t get to Koula, but chances are he would have collared Ben Trbojevic.

“I think Benny trusted me to do my thing,” Koula says. “We built that trust playing alongside each other all year.”

King Koula finishes it off … without a shoe
Koula is exactly the type of person the NRL wants to line up in their fastest man in league contest on grand final day - if it ever gets off the ground.

But even by his standards, this was a special effort.

Having enough speed to ensure the desperate Sexton can’t get a shot on him, Koula switches the ball into both hands as he bears down on the retreating Skelton, who is fooled into thinking he’s readying himself to pass to winger Talau.

It means Skelton can’t attempt a tackle, and with neat footwork, he brushes past Tracey, who can do no more than rip one of Koula’s boots off as the Manly flyer races away with the prize of a berth in the second week of the finals.

“I was [thinking about passing], but I saw the opposite winger hesitating,” Koula says. “There were a few times [we thought about running it on the last], but we just didn’t pull the trigger on the play. The one play we did, we got the result. To score the try, I can’t describe the [feeling]. It’s probably the most important try I’ve ever scored.”

RELATED ARTICLE
IMG_0207.jpeg

Daly Cherry-Evans celebrates with Luke Brooks.
Analysis
NRL 2024
On a day of hate and baseball bats, Sea Eagles soar

Said coach Seibold: “We see it from Tolu at training. He’s a very, very gifted athlete and very quick young guy. That’s a real special finals try, isn’t it? The guys ran it on the last, and we were identifying they were dropping back. The guys executed, and it was a pretty special play.”

If it wasn’t for Xavier Coates’ aerobatics or Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow’s length-of-the-field screamer, then Koula’s scintillating effort to beat the Bulldogs in an electric finals clash might have just won him try of the season.

Even Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo could do no less than praise Cherry-Evans and Trbojevic for having the stones to do what few others would.

“That’s why [Trbojevic] and Daly are champion players,” Ciraldo shrugs. “They come up with those moments, and they’ve been doing it for long periods of their career. That’s why experience counts.

IMG_0197.jpeg


“Tom was so brave. You can tell he’s carrying a couple of things. He didn’t look himself, but to come up with a play in that moment is why he’s such a champion player - and why he got his team over the line.”
 
Last edited:

ABTK

"Bollocks"
Premium Member
Tipping Member
Bully has been running like a thoroughbred race horse once out in the open for a couple of his recent tries .
Bit of discussion in trying to bring in a new prop or resigning Lodge but again certainly hope that there are some serious behind the scenes efforts to keep Bully longer term ,
Bully is a keeper. His support play is excellent.
 

Harmless27

Reserve Grader
From Adam Pengilly, SMH:

Anatomy of a Manly miracle: DCE went all-in and hit the jackpot

By Adam Pengilly
September 16, 2024 — 11.38am

There comes a time in every NRL final when, in the words of Kenny Rogers, you need to make a choice.

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em;
Know when to fold ’em;
Know when to walk away;
Know when to run.

We can assume Kenny might not have been a fan of the greatest game of all, but even he could have recognised Manly might have been pushing their luck thinking they could run when they did.

Buried deep in their own end, with the clock ticking and the Bulldogs defence swarming, off one of their worst yardage sets all season, who would have thought it would actually be a good idea to run the ball on the last tackle? Daly Cherry-Evans did. Tom Trbojevic did. Anthony Seibold did.

Sixteen seconds later, Manly speedster Tolu Koula - who once ran the 100 metres in 10.58 seconds as a schoolkid - had dived over to score a try shoeless. He was the seventh pair of hands to touch the ball on the play.

Turns out it was the right time to run.

View attachment 28232

“We always talk about playing every play and not dying on one,” Manly centre Reuben Garrick says. “That’s the perfect example.”

Here’s how the Sea Eagles produced one of the great finals tries of the NRL era at Accor Stadium on Sunday.

Going nowhere fast
Ask any NRL coach the key to bringing the ball out of your own end, and most will start and finish their answer with the back five. They want strong ball runners in their centres and wingers, particularly at the end of each half, to help the tiring forwards.

The only problem for Manly on Sunday was the set before their miracle try, they were going nowhere.

It started with featherweight teenage winger Lehi Hopoate fielding a kick and being smothered on his 10-metre line, and for the next four tackles, each of his fellow members in the back five - Trbojevic, Koula, Tommy Talau and Reuben Garrick - each tried to make metres. No Manly forward took a run. At the end of the set, the backs had only made 19 metres.

So, who in their right mind would think there’s a chance to risk it all on the last when you’re not even 30 metres out from your own line?

“It was definitely off the cuff footy,” Cherry-Evans says.

What prompted them to run?
Garrick’s final play-the-ball was the key. For the first time in the set, he left a couple of defenders in his wake with Reed Mahoney and Viliame Kikau both not able to recover to marker before Garrick gets up to trigger the ruck. That immediately makes two Bulldogs defenders vulnerable on the play.

Hooker Lachlan Croker shovels the ball to Cherry-Evans, but instead of punting it for territory, he looks back to his inside where, until that point, a largely ineffective Tom Trbojevic was lurking. Surprisingly, Cherry-Evans throws the pass to Trbojevic, who also opts against kicking and surges through the middle and past a diving Jaeman Salmon.

“At that moment in the game, I thought it was an opportunity we had to take,” Cherry-Evans says. “They were winning field position most of the game. We got a quick play-the-ball and they had one marker. They over-chased and I thought the space was going to be up the middle, but it closed pretty quickly.”

Trbojevic beating Salmon immediately compresses the Bulldogs’ defence as Mahoney and Sam Hughes scramble to get hold of him.

But maybe the key to the entire play is his offload, which is fielded by Garrick, the same man who played the ball and crucially kept alive in the play.

“I just saw ‘Turbo’ take off and usually good things happen around him,” Garrick says. “He’s a pretty smart footballer. Everyone knows that and when he sees an opportunity, we try to jump on the back of him. I just wanted to be some support there.”

Quick hands the key
It can take years and years of repetition for the most basic of skills to show up under pressure. In a couple of split seconds, Garrick and Luke Brooks - playing his first finals match more than 4000 days after his NRL career started - proved why.

Garrick, under pressure from the defence, quickly sends a pass out to Brooks who, likewise, has to catch and throw it swiftly out wider to evade Stephen Crichton, the best defensive centre in the game.

View attachment 28233
Tolu Koula celebrates the win with Lehi Hopoate and Luke Brooks.CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

“I felt someone coming to me, and we had a bit of space out there,” Brooks says. “The [Canterbury] winger [Jeral Skelton] drops back so we knew there was a bit of room out there.”

Turbo starts it, Burbo keeps it going
The play might have started with one Trbojevic having a huge hand, but what happened next with the youngest Trbojevic might have been just as equally crucial.

Ben Trbojevic, who’d only been on the field for less than 10 minutes, catches the ball with ample space in front of him. Skelton and Bulldogs fullback Connor Tracey have dropped back anticipating the kick.

But instead of chewing up some ground himself, Trbojevic quickly decides the wise move is to get it to the faster Koula, running just five metres before passing the ball to his teammate inside the Bulldogs’ half. It takes the scrambling Canterbury halfback Toby Sexton out of the equation because he can’t get to Koula, but chances are he would have collared Ben Trbojevic.

“I think Benny trusted me to do my thing,” Koula says. “We built that trust playing alongside each other all year.”

King Koula finishes it off … without a shoe
Koula is exactly the type of person the NRL wants to line up in their fastest man in league contest on grand final day - if it ever gets off the ground.

But even by his standards, this was a special effort.

Having enough speed to ensure the desperate Sexton can’t get a shot on him, Koula switches the ball into both hands as he bears down on the retreating Skelton, who is fooled into thinking he’s readying himself to pass to winger Talau.

It means Skelton can’t attempt a tackle, and with neat footwork, he brushes past Tracey, who can do no more than rip one of Koula’s boots off as the Manly flyer races away with the prize of a berth in the second week of the finals.

“I was [thinking about passing], but I saw the opposite winger hesitating,” Koula says. “There were a few times [we thought about running it on the last], but we just didn’t pull the trigger on the play. The one play we did, we got the result. To score the try, I can’t describe the [feeling]. It’s probably the most important try I’ve ever scored.”

RELATED ARTICLE
Daly Cherry-Evans celebrates with Luke Brooks.
Analysis
NRL 2024
On a day of hate and baseball bats, Sea Eagles soar

Said coach Seibold: “We see it from Tolu at training. He’s a very, very gifted athlete and very quick young guy. That’s a real special finals try, isn’t it? The guys ran it on the last, and we were identifying they were dropping back. The guys executed, and it was a pretty special play.”

If it wasn’t for Xavier Coates’ aerobatics or Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow’s length-of-the-field screamer, then Koula’s scintillating effort to beat the Bulldogs in an electric finals clash might have just won him try of the season.

Even Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo could do no less than praise Cherry-Evans and Trbojevic for having the stones to do what few others would.

“That’s why [Trbojevic] and Daly are champion players,” Ciraldo shrugs. “They come up with those moments, and they’ve been doing it for long periods of their career. That’s why experience counts.

View attachment 28234

“Tom was so brave. You can tell he’s carrying a couple of things. He didn’t look himself, but to come up with a play in that moment is why he’s such a champion player - and why he got his team over the line.”
That is one of the better written pieces I have had the pleasure of reading about our win. Thank you for posting the whole thing - what a ripper.
 
Team P W L PD Pts
24 19 5 243 44
24 17 7 186 40
24 16 8 275 38
24 16 8 222 38
24 15 9 89 36
24 14 10 96 34
24 13 10 113 33
24 12 12 -40 30
24 12 12 -127 30
24 11 13 -1 28
24 11 13 -126 28
24 10 14 -70 26
24 9 14 -62 25
24 8 16 -168 22
24 7 17 -155 20
24 7 17 -188 20
24 6 18 -287 18
Back
Top Bottom