Give the souths players halos

[Cameron]

so in the last 160 mins of football against souths the penalty count has been

17-5

Souths really are a near perfect side when they play us. According to the flogs with the whistle.

Interesting facts when they beat us at anz in round 17
We scored 4 tries to 3 and last night it was 5 tries a piece. In round 17 they kicked 2 penalty goals and last night it was 3 penalty goals.

 

[Cameron]

 

[Cameron]

We had them in every stat except
Total Sets (caused by the penalty count)
All runs (as a result 5 extra sets)
All run meters (caused by the above two stars)
And all run meters

People will say we are one eyed and bias but the numbers don’t lie we were the better side last night but we didn’t get a fair go.

 

[StuBoot]

What that doesn’t either is that the penalty count was 4-0 in the 2nd half.
We have them on them on the ropes but Sutton made sure we couldn’t land the knockout.

 

[BrendonStarr]

We were clearly the superior team. If the roles were reversed and Manly got the dozen or so free leg ups that Souths did, we would have murdered them on the scoreboard. Something like 38-16

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

Souths were good enough to take the opportunities, so congratulations to them

As for Manly, so much to like but a case of 'close but no cigar'.

We started quite strongly but suddenly let in 2 fairly soft early tries, which totally came back to bite us later!

For the next 53 minutes, up until Jake was binned, Manly scored 5 tries to 1 (Murray's try right on half-time, which came out of nowhere (from memory, following another bunny bonus penalty). That was a true indication Manly were the better side and its pretty certain we would have won if Jake wasn't binned.

Souths have a strong team but they did not play well - due to the pressure Manly exerted.

In the end we weren't quite good enough to win the game but on the credit side our players proved to everyone (and most importantly to themselves) they have the ability to get into a grand final qualifier. We should be there but let it slip.

I expect our players will grow and learn from that slightly bitter experience and come out next year a stronger, more confident and more disciplined outfit.

Given a reasonable injury run, for example having Tom T available, I will be amazed if we aren't a top 4 side from go to whoa next season.