Like others have mentioned it’s very hard to compete against a team when you drop your balls and only a few players show up.
Kikau is the icing on the cake. He will never do much when you lack the quality. Our spine is mahoney. Burton will be ok but he can’t build the attack or execute. Our fullback is a heart attack waiting to happen. We got pounded with penalties and 6 against. It’s only so far heart will get you against top teams in heat. We defended well. It was 6 all 5 mins before half time off an opportunistic manly try. They got a questionable sin bin. Manly scored on either side of half time while we had 12 men. And the rest is history.
Manly fully fit are probably a top 4 if not top 5 team. Along with Penrith, sharks, cowboys. We aren’t on their level. We probably need a quality 7 and we will be knocking on the door of those teams mentioned above.
Not saying thommo, pangai and patolo win us the game today. But doubt we get ragdolled like we did. It’s an experience thing and a learning curve. Our real competition are tigers, dragons, raiders, dolphins, warriors, titans etc.