NRL 2016: Canterbury Bulldogs thrash new-look Manly Sea Eagles at Brookvale Oval

MANLY’S new-look side failed to fire as Canterbury’s size and power got the job done at Brookvale Oval to get a first-round win on the board.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 04: Sam Kasiano of the Bulldogs celebrates with team mates after scoring a try during the round one NRL match between the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and the Canterbury Bulldogs at Brookvale Oval on March 4, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

EVEN on the wrong end of a 28-6 first round belting by the Bulldogs, Trent Barrett held his cool like a seasoned professional.

No ranting or raving.

Asked how the NRL’s latest rookie coach was feeling after a summer of hype was given a reality check after they were blown apart 22-0 in the first half, Barrett admitted: “Pretty empty now.

“It is a tough competition and I am a realist.

“I look at things and I see how we lost that game and we just have to fix it.

“No excuses here.

“We weren’t good enough in that first half.

“We are going to have to be good against the Tigers next week.”

And that’s one thing the big Brookvale Oval crowd of 16,512 who turned up to welcome the new era would have agreed on with their new coach.

There is plenty of room left for improvement.

Plenty.

By fulltime, naturally, the social media chant was already up to “Bring Back Toovs”.

Not that it’s ever going to happen.

But if last night showed one thing also, it’s that all the new faces are going to take some time to gel together.

“It could have got ugly at 22-0 against a side like them,” Barrett added.

“We came out with an even share of possession (in the second half) and it was 6-all.

“Look, no hiding from the fact it was a bit of a wake up call for us.

“And we will cop that.

“It is a tough competition and we have to aim up next week.”

But look back at the Bulldogs performance last night and it was every bit as impressive as Manly weren’t.

Sam Kasiano of the Bulldogs is tackled by Siosia Vave (left), Apisai Koroisau and Lewis Brown.

With all the talk of how the interchange reduction from 10 to eight was going to leave the Bulldogs giant pack floundering, Des Hasler returned to his old stomping ground with a trimmed down version of monsters who totally dominated from start to finish.

Right from the get-go they charged straight and they charged hard.

And on the back of that they raced in try after try.

There were none better than their inspirational skipper James Graham, who clocked up 212m from his 25 hits ups along with 36 tackles, while the hard working Aidan Tolman wasn’t far behind with 196m and a game high 40 tackles.

But while the Bulldogs bookends led the way, their forwards across the board showed too much aggression and power for Manly full stop.

Asked if the summer of hard work had paid off with all the big men stripping plenty of weight, Hasler said: “They changed their lifestyle and I have to give a huge wrap to the individuals that

worked really hard in our (high performance) unit but also for all the players buying into the mentality.

“But let’s not get carried away, it’s round one.

“There is still a lot of footy to be played.”

Not one to ever show too much public emotion, Barrett would have been furious with his team at the break given his final message before the game was that ball control was going to be paramount.

For all the good it did with the Bulldogs opening two tries to Sam Perrett (10th minute) and Will Hopoate (15th minute) coming directly from Manly turnovers inside their own quarter.

Manly had no answer for the Dogs onslaught.

It helped give the Bulldogs a massive 63-37 per cent first half split of possession and on the back of that the Bulldogs blew away the theory that they would struggle this year.

“They had over 60 per cent of the footy in the first half and it just showed with the reduction of the interchange if you give a team that much possession it is going to be hard and you are going to run out of gas,” Barrett said.

“We didn’t give ourselves a chance, too many errors.

“We made four coming out of our own end.

“One area we wanted to be good in was in yardage and we gave them four pretty simple shots on our tryline and give them too much headstart.”

Barrett explained that it was the first time the spine of Daly Cherry-Evans, Dylan Walker, Api Koroisau and Tom Trbojevic had played together and that is exactly what it looked like at most times.

“But in saying that when you are under that much fatigue in the second half it was always going to be hard,” he said.

But Hasler also paid tribute to the performance of his halves Josh Reynolds and Moses Mbye, while Will Hopoate had an outstanding debut for his new club.

Filling in for the injured Brett Morris at fullback, Hopoate crossed for a try and showed signs that he just might have found the strength and speed that made him a rookie phenomenon when he played under Hasler back at Manly.

It was also a night to remember for Josh Morris who finally crossed for his 100th NRL try, making him and Brett the first brothers in the game’s history to celebrate the try-scoring century, while their old man Steve also made the magic number as a player.

Adding to Manly’s woes, Martin Taupau and Steve Matai now face a nervous wait over the weekend after being put on report for dangerous first half tackles.

Taupau was in strife for a shoulder charge while Matai collected Aiden Tolman with a high shot.

Originally published as NRL 2016: Canterbury Bulldogs thrash new-look Manly Sea Eagles at Brookvale Oval