Lachy MacCorquodale reviews the round five clash between the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and the Brisbane Broncos. Here’s how the game went.
MATCH TIMELINE
| Minute | Scoring Play | Score |
| 5th | Try Kotoni Staggs (Brisbane) | Brisbane 4-0 |
| 6th | Goal Jamayne Isaako (Brisbane) | Brisbane 6-0 |
| 15th | Try Xavier Coates (Brisbane) | Brisbane 10-0 |
| 17th | Goal Jamayne Isaako (Brisbane) | Brisbane 12-0 |
| 29th | Try Darius Boyd (Brisbane) | Brisbane 16-0 |
| 31th | Goal Jamayne Isaako (Brisbane) | Brisbane 18-0 |
| 36th | Try Tevita Funa (Manly) | Brisbane 18-4 |
| 43rd | Try Daly Cherry-Evans (Manly) | Brisbane 18-8 |
| 44th | Goal Reuben Garrick (Manly) | Brisbane 18-10 |
| 54th | Try Moses Suli (Manly) | Brisbane 18-14 |
| 56th | Goal Reuben Garrick (Manly) | Brisbane 18-16 |
| 63rd | Penalty Goal Reuben Garrick (Manly) | Tied 18-18 |
| 70th | Penalty Goal Reuben Garrick (Manly) | Manly 20-18 |
MATCH SUMMARY
1st Half
The Brisbane Broncos started the game in much better fashion than their previous match seven days earlier, with a try in the opening five minutes. Xavier Coates caught a bomb on the right edge of the field and passed it back to Kotoni Staggs, who wasted no time returning from his suspension as he put a little grubber into the in-goal and used his pace to get to the ball first to score the opener. The Broncos didn’t take long to extend their lead, with Coates scoring his first for the night as he was on the receiving end of a brilliant bomb from Anthony Milford.
Manly struggled to create opportunities for themselves and penalised themselves through dropped balls and gifting repeat sets to the Broncos. One of these repeat sets led to a left edge shift that saw Darius Boyd beat Tom Trbojevic in a one-on-one tackle to score his first try of the season. Boyd looked set to have his second try in just five minutes until the try was disallowed as Daly Cherry-Evans was taken out of play by Corey Oates. Manly looked more competitive throughout the final 10 minutes, but they’d have their work cut out for them as the entered the break trailing by 14 points.
2nd Half
It took all of three minutes for Manly to open the scoring for the second half, with Cherry-Evans finishing off a brilliant sweeping play in which a pass from Dylan Walker put him through a hole to score. The majority of the possession over the course of the next 10 minutes was predominately with Manly and they made the most of it, finding an overlap on the right edge of the park which provided Tom Trbojevic with his second try assist of the night as he put Moses Suli over to reduce the Broncos’ lead to just two points. The Sea Eagles were gifted a penalty just to the left of the uprights, with Coates taking out the man without playing at the ball. Reuben Garrick converted the penalty goal to level the game with 17 minutes remaining.
A contentious strip penalty given away by Patrick Carrigan gave Manly another penalty goal attempt from 30 metres in front. Garrick put it over the black dot with comfort as the Sea Eagles took the lead for the first time. Brisbane came close to winning the game in the final minutes with a nice sweeping play on the right edge, which gave Coates a small opportunity to score a try until Tom Trbojevic ran over to help his centre Brad Parker take Coates out of bounds. It effectively ended the match as Manly scored 20 unanswered points to win the game.
GAME HIGHLIGHT
Manly scored 20 unanswered points to respond to a great opening half from the Brisbane Broncos. It was a half of football that the Broncos desperately needed to give their fans something to cheer about, but they weren’t able to maintain that performance for the course of the match. Payne Haas was again reliable for the Broncos, pumping out 181 run metres and 46 tackles in another 80-minute effort which is starting to become the norm for the 20-year-old prop.
Daly Cherry-Evans was a part of the try of the night: he burst through a hole unexpectedly as he swooped behind the play in Tom Trbojevic-fashion to score the first try of the second half. Special mention to his front-rower Addin Fonua-Blake, who amassed a mammoth 236 run metres, including 124 post-contact metres, as he had to put in an extra long stint with an injury to his front row partner Martin Taupau. It was an impressive comeback from Manly led by the aforementioned Cherry-Evans, who seemed as calm as ever as he navigated the comeback.
SQUADS
Manly Warringah Sea Eagles: 1. Tom Trbojevic 20. Tevita Funa 3. Brad Parker 4. Moses Suli 5. Reuben Garrick 6. Dylan Walker 7. Daly Cherry-Evans 17. Taniela Paseka 9. Danny Levi 10. Martin Taupau 11. Joel Thompson 15. Corey Waddell 13. Jake Trbojevic. Interchange:ย 8. Addin Fonua-Blake 14. Lachlan Croker 16. Sean Keppie 19. Jack Gosiewski.
Brisbane Broncos: 1. Jamayne Isaako 2. Xavier Coates 3. Kotoni Staggs 4. Darius Boyd 5. Herbie Farnworth 6. Anthony Milford 7. Brodie Croft 8. Matthew Lodge 9. Cory Paix 10. Payne Haas 11. Corey Oates 12. Joe Ofahengaue 13. Patrick Carrigan. Interchange:ย 14. Tesi Niu 15. Ben Te’o 16. Rhys Kennedy 17. Thomas Flegler.
