At last the match we'd been waiting for had arrived, a huge Saturday night semi at our preferred away ground, with it's golden opportunity to roast the Chooks and reward ourselves with the priceless leap to week 3 off the finals. Could we pull off the victory?
by CF2
Player ratings:
Peter Hiku: Could easily have been excused for nerves on a massive occasion but literally exploded into the match from his first touch in a sensational MOM display. 26 runs and 297 extraordinary metres, with not a single error. Brilliantly diffused each and every bomb and ran the ball hard all night only to go unrewarded. Absolutely outstanding.
Jorge Taufua: Tried hard all night with some of his usual defence tearing runs, but just didn't get the chance to rip them open down the left wing for that oh so badly needed try.
Steve Matai: Seemingly gone in the 27th minute after being smashed in a tackle, Stevie finally rose to his feet and yet again completed 80 guts minutes. What a hero.
Jamie Lyon: Pulled out all his wonderfully experienced tricks to send Wolfie away several times in the first half, and was in everything else all night. Great game in the toughest of attacking conditions.
David Williams: Footy can be so cruel, worked that first half sizzling run beautifully, but the try scoring pass to DCE went achingly astray. Fewer opportunities in the 2nd half but never let up.
Kieran Foran: Is their a 5/8 in the game who works harder? Put his body on the line for 80 gruelling minutes, only to be so completely unrewarded with the match winning try or try assist he so deserved.
Daly Cherry-Evans: Kicked well and never stopped working with the ball in hand, but with defence that frustratingly impenetrable, just could not crack them despite trying absolutely everything.
Glenn Stewart: Defence never a question of course, but stifled with the ball all night by the suspiciously regularly off side Roosters.
Justin Horo: Worked as hard as ever, but not sure why just the 61 minutes.
Anthony Watmough: Clearly playing injured, a simply unbelievable effort for 22 runs, 160 metres and 40 tackles, but those 3 handling errors were crucial blows.
Brenton Lawrence: 9 runs for 67 metres and just 36 minutes surely nowhere near enough for our no.1 prop.
Matt Ballin: 25 consecutive season games tackling heaven and earth, including another 50 gut busting tackles tonight, is beyond hero status. What a shame the penalty error cast a late shadow.
Brent Kite: The Landcruiser looked buggered after the emotional Brookie send off, and the stats of just 7 runs for 54 metres, plus 2 errors only highlighted it.
Bench:
Richie Fa-aoso: On a night when his muscle was so badly needed, dealt a cruel knock out blow after just 13 mins on the field. Pray he's ok.
Tom Symonds: I am baffled by the lack of match play Big Red gets. 17 minutes? Why would you keep a lethal Beaver like weapon off the field? Sorry Toovs I don't get it.
George Rose: Threw the pie shop at the Roosters in his 24 minute role. Love ya Georgie.
Jamie Buhrer: I really like this kid, I really do, but I just can't for the life of me see why a small utility small player gets 44 mins in a match this big.
THE GOOD:
Our defence.
Not just good it was beyond any superlative.
The Roosters attack managed one single piece of success in just the 10th minute with a grubber kick try millimetres before the dead ball corner, but for the remaining 70 minutes their attacking machine was 100% blunted, including the complete disarming of their Sonny Bill weapon.
THE BAD:
Our attack.
The line breaks stat for the entire match was Roosters 0, Manly 4.
On most days that's a fantastic match winning stat, but this of course was no ordinary match. They had NOTHING in attack due to our superb defence blunting them, and forcing errors. By contrast we in fact showed a lot of attacking promise, but that's where the problem set in, with the promise shown with the ball unable to be converted into match winning points. Agonisingly, with just a tiny 6 of them needed to win the game.
Trailing by the bizarre score of just 4-0 for virtually the entire game, we had a mountain of possession in their 30 metre zone, particularly in the 2nd half where we totally dominated field territory, but we could not find a way to post the one single try needed to take the game. Yes we came agonisingly close several times, and yes the Roosters defence was equally as extraordinary as ours, but with so many opportunities we became frustrated to the point, as Gus Gould rightly lamented, of completely running out of ideas. Many times our attacking sets were reduced to disorganised chain passing across field with little penetration, and a couple of 5th tackle kicks lacked any planning.
Our bench selection and rotation.
Souths and the Roosters are the only two teams we haven't beaten all year (in now a combined shuddering 5 matches). Both of those teams have huge packs of forwards, and the only way of getting on top of them is to naturally match them with size and strength.
Yes we lost our hit man Fa'aoso with that horrible knock out blow after he'd only been on for 13 mins, but notwithstanding that, there are several alarming questions regarding our 17:
1. Why did Brenton Lawrence, one of our most important big weapons, play just 38 minutes? (note Roosters prop O'Donnell played 63 mins)
2. Unless I missed an injury, why did 80 min workhorse Horo only play 61 minutes? (yet the injured and needled up Watmough played the full match)
3. Why would we pick TWO utility players in Symonds and Buhrer when surely there's only one bench spot for this position? (meaning we forfeit a big guy like Gower or Hasson)
4. Why would we let the smaller of the two in Buhrer play for 44 minutes, surely his role in a game like this should only be a short cameo one (note Roosters smallest bench man Mortimer played just 17 minutes)
5. Why did the bigger and far more dangerous Symonds only get a ridiculous 17 minutes? Why do we keep wasting his enormous talent?
THE UGLY:
Our errors. (and an incredible 9 lives for the Roosters, 8 of them in the 2nd half, 3 of them in the last 6 mins).
1. 36 min. Watmough drops the ball on the 2nd tackle.
2. 43 min. Watmough handling error again.
3. 48 min. Watmough knocks on. That's 3 in 12 mins.
4. 55 min. Symonds handling error.
5. 56 min. Taufua drops a bomb.
6. 64 min Kite knocks on 3 metres out from the Roosters line.
7 74 min. Ballin takes penalty touch finder from middle of field (exhausted from a 50 metre run, DCE points to Matty to take it) but he fails to find touch.
8. 79 min. Glenn Stewart attempts a miracle offload on the 4th tackle, just 1 metre out from the Roosters line, but it flings up into Roosters hands.
9. 80 min. With the siren gone we attack from right to left and back again, but with a final grubber or bomb mandatory, George gets caught with the ball and offloads to a Rooster.
The Roosters intentional off side tactic.
Robinson's clear instructions were to stand inside the 10 metres and be totally in our faces all night stifling our attack. They knew this would result in penalties, but they backed their brilliant defence and it worked. But is that great footy, or a bit of blatant cheating? The final penalty count of 12-5 goes a long way to answering that.
SUMMARY:
A strange night on the scoreboard with a beyond unbelievable physical toll of defence from both sides, the winner was clearly going to be the team who could take that one precious opportunity.
As it transpired in the 2nd half, we were the team who had ALL the opportunities to do so, with a whopping 8-2 penalty count (12-5 for the match), but unfortunately we just couldn't come up with that one agonising try to take the game.
Hiku went within a foot, Foran went within a foot, and Lyon would have been over from a 10 metre scrum had Jennings not flung a hand out to knock down the pass.
It was that close.
The winner of this match was always going to have that priceless advantage of the week off, but the incredible physical toll of this match has now TRIPLED that effect. Our path to the GF is now so much harder, given we must back up next Friday night against an inspired Sharks team and their thug captain Gallen, before then meeting the giant killers Souths the week after.
Despite Hiku's brilliant performance, we badly need the try scoring freakishness of Brett. Pray that he's back, and that the other boys can back up after such an exhausting effort.
I'm a glass half full man, and I KNOW we have the guts, the skill and the passion to do it.
A final plea.
I got out there at 4pm yesterday for the first game and the Sharks supporters were absolutely incredible with their team rising to the constant raucous support. Please ALL Manly fans, make sure you turn up in BIG numbers on Fri night. We are very lucky to be playing at Allianz in Paddington yet again instead off being out at ANZ, and your vocal maroon and white support, including the spine tingling Manly chant, will be critical in getting our courageous boys home.