By Billie Eder
It wasn’t pretty, but after a 24-10 victory over the Warriors on Friday night, Manly are knocking on the door of their first finals series in three years.
With a lighting storm raging overhead, and the heavens opening up on 4 Pines Park, Daly Cherry-Evans helped inspire an ugly victory for the Sea Eagles.
For coach Anthony Seibold, it’s exactly the kind of tenacity the Sea Eagles need to carry into September.
“It was a really gritty win to be fair. New Zealand Warriors, I thought they started the game really well,” said Seibold.
“To have a 14-0 second half, it was really good. The boys showed a lot of fight, we had to defend our line quite a bit, and we did it really well.
“We just spoke about at half-time about being a little more accurate. We gave a lot of piggybacks to the Warriors when they were coming out of their end of the field and then probably made three errors, I think, when we were coming out of yardage.
Tom Trbojevic in Manly’s win against the Warriors.Credit: Getty Images
“It’s just about being a little more accurate, but I just thought the guys sort kept fighting. It wasn’t the prettiest win, but that’s probably where we want to get to, finals footy, which is our ambition, you’ve got to win ugly, and that’s probably the best description for tonight.”
The Warriors came ready for a fight, and kept the Sea Eagles pinned down their own end before a 40/20 from Cherry-Evans helped swing momentum in Manly’s favour.
The Sea Eagles veteran proved once again that at 35 years old, he’s still one of the best in the game, and his cross-field kick to Reuben Garrick helped break the 10-10 deadlock after half-time.
Echoing that of his coach, Cherry-Evans said the team were playing a different style of football this year.
“This is a different way we have won in recent weeks,” Cherry-Evans said.
“I’m sure everyone at Brookvale would have wanted us to light it up tonight, put 30, 40 points on someone, but sometimes you’ve got to just win ugly.
“Seibs said it before, it’s just as simple as that. We’re always trying to get better and there’s certainly parts of our game that aren’t perfect yet, but to get a result at this stage of the year in front of our home fans – it’s ultimately what we come here for tonight and we got that result. Onto the next job, really.”
Manly now sit firmly inside the top eight, but have question marks hanging over some of their key players ahead of their clash with the Tigers next week.
Garrick was put on report for a hip-drop tackle on Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, while hooker Gordon Chan Kum Tong left the field with a shoulder injury and centre Tommy Talau picked up a pec injury for which he’ll have scans over the weekend.
Sea Eagles fullback Tom Trbojevic did suffer a cork to his pec, but has already been cleared of any injury concern.