The irony was we played like a robotic pre meditated Hasler team
But Haslers team played eyes up footy and won
I went to the game and watched it back twice later. With due respect if youve taped the game watch it again. I also spoke with Mark Gasnier on the field after the game...he offered that the dogs were unlucky tonight...other than the initial onslaught of manly, he thought the Dogs were the better side. I agree with him.
Consider that if CHN grabs the ball from the grubber rather than forcing a ball 2 feet in the air onto the ground maintaining contact the whole time, and the refs pull back any of the 6 Manly forward passes that gave them field position at critical times, then manly would not of scored at least 2 of the penalties and the Dogs win.
It was stupid Holland racing out of the line, together with our stupid online compressed defence in the first 15 minutes that allowed manly to open with the 2 tries. After that time, Manly did NOTHING...while we scored 2 tries.
Lets also not forget Manly have just beaten Souths and Raiders (both in the top 4) and should of beaten St Merge if not for referring blunder and you can see that we played well against Manly and if we had got the even our fair share of 50/50 calls go our way, and or our inexperienced team dont have brain explosions like Lewises pass to the 3rd row or Holland basketball tap ons...then Dogs win that game.