did stuart play good

I always fancied Manly to win, they were outstanding at times and Leeds could not live with them. Leeds needed to play with more width but they miss Webb and Burrow in that area, still you came back at them and gave them a run for their money.

Unlucky Leeds no shame in losing to a team that beat Storm 40-0 in the NRL final.

Fair play to you guys....i think alot of us Aussie could take some lesson in how to accept defeat gracelessly.
I have only seen the highlights but it sound slike Manly are going to be the team to beat this season again in the NRL.
Would have been good to have seen a different game with Leeds having Danny B, Webb and Burrow (if he stayed on the field....great tackle though from Whatmough) in their side.

Whatmough is a local manly junior see what happens when you produce and nuture your own juniors

The kind of game I'd expect when the NRL side takes it seriously. Remembering that they haven't actually played a game and we've played three, it gives a reasonable idea of the relative standings of SL vs NRL. It would be ideal if the NRL sides took this as seriously every year.

Just on Watkins, the kid's only 17 and won't be facing Manly every week. He's got a lot to learn and that was as good a lesson as he'll get. If he can watch the game and see what he did and didn't do he should only get better as a result.

Watmough was amazing, one of the best games I've ever seen from a second rower. Smith was excellent, why did we keep bombing Stewart, Williams looked a little shakey under the high bomb. That 10 minute spell for Manly in the 2nd half was 10 minutes of just quality rugby league. If Peacock hadn't been sin binned and Burrow hadn't have been injured, things may have been different. But we did well not to let our heads drop, and we drew the 2nd half.

I wish for once the SL team would take it seriously and not like a friendly.

rlpics from Skyrl

Fantastic game and despite the 3 try blitz I thought we held our own

We looked all at see when Diskin wasn't on the field and missed our 2 best attackers in Webb and Burrow, I thought we also missed Eastwood/Ellis as Kirke looked well out of his depth (first time in a long time) in the first half.

Even with a full 17 out I think Manly would still be too quick, strong and skillful for us, they would probably just of stepped it up another gear.

Lots of praise for Senior and he did make some good breaks and meters.

However, he does need to remember when to take the tackle. Twice in the second half he passed into touch, and the first one, resulted in the start of the blitz.

Apart from that he looked good against a player that he's had a few good battles with over the years.

Thought that Ali looked great in the last 15. Really made a lot of difference, not just the work for the 2 tries, but also some other testing runs. McClennan needs to get him playing like that more weeks than not, and keep him off the treatment table.

I agree but I think the one that was followed by Manly's three try blitz was the planned short side move from the penalty where Hall's inside ball wasn't taken in by Senior and ended up with Lyon in possession.



Yes if great = a shot to the head that resulted in the conceding of a penalty and your opponent taking no further part in the game due to an illegal high shot.

Good to see Watmough go out of his way to apologise to Burrow at the end of the game though.