I'm not having a go at anyone but I honestly question if a number of posters on the site really understand RL. It's disappointing to lose, because we're Manly supporters, but I fail to see the big surprise in today's result. We have improved and won some games against some good sides early in the season, before the likes of Melbourne, Roosters, and Penrith really hit their straps, but lots of clubs have those types of wins throughout a season. They mean nothing until you can win when the whips are cracking. Too many of you have read into those early wins...you can see patterns across a season and it should be obvious that we aren't where those teams are.
We turned up today. You could see the effort from the opening whistle. The issue was not effort. It was not a pitiful performance at all, we just got beaten by a really good football side. Surprise?! We are not the best team in this competition and haven't been all season, so why would we start now?!
Cronulla weathered our early storm and got into a groove, where there superior speed troubled us and fatigued us to the point where we leaked tries towards the back end of the game.
Every time we lose, it doesn't have to be what we didn't do...sometimes it's what the opposition did and they are a superior side to us and have been for the last 3-4 years.
Deal with it...