Manly brush off spectre of ACC to down Broncos March 9, 2013 Steve Mascord IF events at Cronulla on Friday night were supposed to spook the other NRL teams named in ACC's doping report, then clearly no-one told Manly. The Sea Eagles are one of six NRL teams mentioned in the report, which caused its first round of havoc some two hours before kick-off in the only Friday night match of round one when Sharks coach Shane Flanagan was stood down and four officials sacked. But Geoff Toovey's Sea Eagles were anything but distracted as they took on Brisbane in a game which marked the Broncos' premiership debut against the same opposition 25 years ago. Despite some sheer brilliance from the home side in the first half, Manly gamely fought their way to the front after half-time - and stayed there. Coincidentally, Brisbane had led that 1988 match 14-6 at halftime and that was how the ledger stood at the same stage last night. Brisbane had trouble scoring points last year but had seemed to turn over a new leaf in that department during the quick-fire opening 40 minutes. That all began to change when Manly halfback Daly Cherry-Evans beat Peter Wallace and held off Corey Norman and Andrew McCullough to score in the 48th minute. Captain Jamie Lyon's goal narrowed the margin - and then the Eagles gobbled it up. Charging onto Brett Stewart's pass, centre Steve Matai roared into the opposition half, feigned to pass and then arrowed at the posts as he held off the desperate defence of Scott Prince to just reach the try line. It was Matai's second try and was soon followed by another Sea Eagles score, to winger David Williams, after Cherry-Evans' big hit jolted the ball loose from Jack Reed only metres from the Broncos's own line. Broncos fans had been given a "rally towel" to wave at last night's match, bearing their colours and the name of a sponsor. The reverse of it was white and some cynics suggested it was more appropriate for the second half of an entertaining encounter. Read the full article here: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/rugby-league/league-match-report/manly-brush-off-spectre-of-acc-to-down-broncos-20130308-2frov.html#ixzz2MwyTKvbB love that bit i've highlighted
The headline made me not want to read the article as I feared the rumours doing the rounds were starting to be reported by main stream media. Thankfully that doesn't appear to be the case.
