Who was surprised?

[fLIP]

Extract from NRL.com match summary:

"Manly survived a late push from the New Zealand Warriors to pull off a surprise 26-20 NRL victory over the home side at Ericsson Stadium in Auckland."

Am I the only one who was failry confident that it wasn't going to be a walk over by the Kiwis? Why was is such a surprise that a side containing the likes of Stewart, Kennedy, Monas, Kite, Hill, Witt, Leului could come close to challanging the Warriors. Id say, after the display today, good old guss gould and laurey daley will change their tune on their tips for the wooden spoon.

 

[Volley]

I picked them, but I was surprised that our defence was so solid, it was superb.
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Sun Mar 13 2005, 06:18PM ]</span>

 

[ManlyBacker]

I guess the reason it was a surprise to most was that Manly was $2.95 to win the game and had 7 1/2 start. Money does talk and the punters put plenty on the Warriors. To most of those here it wasn't a surprise. We were always hopeful, maybe not overly confident but knew we had a really great chance of winning.

 

[Dan]

I wish I had got to the TAB to put that bet on. Would have been worth a flutter

 

[byso]

I was surprised that Manly won a game like this. It was a torrid affair with hard defence and the Warriors through everything at us. We played better than I expected.....Who was our worst player? I really don't know who that would be.

I wasn't surprised we won though.

 

[Dan]

hey definately threw everything at us

 

[Fluffy]

HEy guys. The lovelly Hopium recorder it for me and Boy what a farken ripper.

That was one hard hard from both teams. On that for i wouldnt be suprised it the warriors and manly made the 8. One of the best games of footy for a long time.

GO MANLY

 

[Matabele]

Let's not get carried away.

There was lots of dropped ball and the intensity was quite a bit below some of the other matches this weekend.

You enjoyed the game because we won and we tackled well. It won't go down in the annals of history as anything special.

 

[byso]

Who said it would.....It was a solid game. Thats the best thing.

 

[Fluffy]

A lot of our first half errors were trying to hard - due to the excitement of the first game. I would expect a lot less of those

 

[CC_Eagle]

Shown on ST Des carved up some of the Kiwi journo's. Something along the lines of telling him that their media places too much pressure on the Warriors and that if future articles continue to be of the same nature it will continue to motivate sides like ours.

He then told the guy to listen to him then a abrupt "congratulations mate, good win".

I love Des.

 

[danno]

IMO, we would have lost this game with last years squad.
Kennedy & Kite always near the ball in attack and defence was the difference.They are class, or at least from my loungeroom they seemed to command alot of respect from the Warriors.

The result does not change anything, only re-inforces it.
Hooker/Dummy Half is still a major worry. If you could combine Dunley/Randall/Williamson into one player, perfect.

Still need to wait 6 to 8 rounds, but I don't see anything changing, we still lack quality players across the park and on the bench.

 

[ManlyBacker]

Let's not get carried away.

There was lots of dropped ball and the intensity was quite a bit below some of the other matches this weekend.

You enjoyed the game because we won and we tackled well. It won't go down in the annals of history as anything special.

They are my thoughts exactly. Happy for a win across the Tasman but we did it last year in similiar circumstances. The reality was the Warriors made more errors at crucial times than we did. They coughed it up 10 metres out many times and if they had hung on to the pill we may have a different story this morning. There is no doubt we showed greater innovation and were willing to try ways to break their defense and that was the difference. I watched a lot of the games and we sit about the middle of performers (as showing in the table today). Lots of positives but i am not getting carried away.

 

[Dan]

ManlyBacker did they cough it up because they just couldnt handle it or was it because Manly forced the erorrs with strong defense?

 

[byso]

A bit of both really.