Aussie view: Manly crumble at Brookvale

Warriors down Manly

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In a game all about absent friends, it wasn't the star fullback mooching around in the grandstand contemplating sexual assault charges, a four-game suspension for bringing the code into disrepute and an uncertain future that affected the outcome nearly so much as the returning prodigal son.

Brett Stewart might have lifted Manly, might have added a little more spice to the side's try-line attack, and the controversial nature of his absence might have hung like a dark cloud over a team now nought from two and yet to play like the premiers of only six months past.

Toss those musings in a box marked hypotheticals - the man who was there, returning to the NRL after three-and-a-half years, a second coming at 32, was halfback Stacey Jones, and to his presence can be attributed a stunning Warriors' revival.

True, Manly had the shovel full of earth, about to fill the visitors' grave and muffed it. But it was equally true that the one who stole the shovel and belted the Sea Eagles across the back of the head was Jones.

At Brookvale Oval, with 16,307 home-town fans showing no mercy, Manly led 24-16 with 20 minutes to play and looked sure things. Sea Eagles coach Des Hasler thought so, and he's not the gambling type. "It was two points today we should have had," he said.

But the Warriors are prepared to roll the dice. With 11 minutes left, fullback Wade McKinnon called the chip for Jones who regathered, dummied to McKinnon and then, realising his legs had never been long enough and now definitely aren't young enough to outrun anything more than a bus in peak hour traffic, passed to centre Brent Tate to score the try.

From prostrate, Jones had the visitors leaning on one arm. With five minutes to play, he got them on their feet with a perfectly weighted chip to the left-hand corner that earned the Warriors a goal-line drop-out and then, with two minutes left, Jones went back to the same spot, with winger Manu Vatuvei's bat-back landing in Jerome Ropati's hands.

With the scores level, Warriors winger Denan Kemp lined up the kick about six metres in from touch and the ball sailed home with 26 seconds on the clock and the Warriors were leaping about like wild men.

But there was more work to do. Kemp spilt Manly's short kick-off and, after the whistle, Manly winger Michael Bani was bumped into touch just two metres short of the Warriors' line - a fittingly frantic finish to a mostly frantic game.

Too frantic for Hasler, who rued his side's ill-discipline and - with his former schoolteacher's walk socks on - their failure to follow instructions.

"We knew exactly what he [Jones] was going to do, we knew exactly the plays he was going to come up with but we couldn't shut him down," Hasler said.

Manly lost the penalty count and came up with 11 unforced errors, these from a team of such rigid self-control last year.

"We are just an undisciplined football team at the moment," said Hasler, who refused to sheet that bad attitude home to the furore that erupted during and after Manly's season launch. "It's an attitude thing and we've got to adjust it real quick."

In fairness, the premiers were far from ordinary - notably Jamie Lyon, who had a hand in number of tries and scored two himself, and bench forward Adam Cuthbertson, who made ground with every carry and got a number of offloads away.

The Warriors, also, were guilty of rampant ill-discipline for large slabs of a match that swayed first one way, then the other and then back again.

Bani nabbed the first try and his speed opened up the Warriors for a second after only 10 minutes, scored by Lyon, who was ankle-tapped but still staggered to the line.

In truth, it was the Warriors who were staggering. But back they came, repaying the hosts with interest, scoring their first three tries in a five-minute burst that showed why this side has the potential to set the NRL competition alight.

And back the game swung again, with the Warriors making a basket case of silly errors and Lyon apparently sealing their fate - only for Jones to break open the envelope and write his own name on the man-of-the-match cheque.

It's simple, really. "Great players come up with the plays at the right time," said Warriors coach Ivan Cleary.

NZ WARRIORS 26 (B Tate 2 J Ropati J Royal M Vatuvei tries D Kemp  3 goals) bt MANLY 24 (J Lyon 2 M Bani A Cuthbertson A Suniula tries M Orford 2 goals) at Brookvale Oval.

Referees: S Hayne, Steve Lyons.

Crowd: 16,307.

- © Fairfax NZ News