With a largely new squad and a new coach, one could quite easily expect there to have been a change from last season, but not until that new squad had played a few games together and got up to match fitness/intensity. Even without new players, any team needs some pre-season games before they are up to the rigours of a SL/NRL/WCC game. Make it about my club/your club all you want, but that's not what this is. I have openly stated the respect I have for Leeds and everything they have achieved over the SL era only a few posts back. I can't be any clearer than that.

The Manly coach seemed dispell any idea of Manly not taking this game seriously. Manly on paper had one of the strongest line ups of any Aussie team to play in this game. Leeds played their bollards off and deserved to win.

On a side note it was great to see too young British centres have great games against two of the best centres in the game.

Winners find a way to win. Losers find excuses.

If manly cant prepare for the WCC it is because they arent good enough to win the WCC. If they were good enough, they would have won.

That's just silly. It's not just Manly. British clubs have dominated this competition for long enough. You really don't think that has anything at all to do with the timing/location of the fixture? We can't win an international competition for toffee, but (more or less) all of our SL winners are superior to their NRL counterparts?

Its not silly. Its rugby league, it isnt played on paper, it isnt played in your imagination. It isnt played on ifs buts and maybes, it isnt played with handicaps, it isnt played with advantages. It is played on a patch of grass, with two goals, officials and 34 players and what happens in that 80minutes is all that matters.

Does this way to win include getting the benefit of a very dodgy call on the Webb bomb spill which 99 times out of 100 would be called a knock on and does it also include getting away with forward passes.

If the answer is yes, the "finding a way to win" in your world means the officials having a shocker in your favour and cheating the rules?

On that we'll have to differ. The SL side [ihas[/i enjoyed an advantage for several years, and until that changes the concept will always be flawed, and the achievement of winning it diminished.

I think it means picking one decision in isolation and pretending it and only it decided the entire 80minutes. Im not sure though, I think its possible ive confused that with codheaded jealousy from a team which hasnt ever been good enough to contest the WCC.

Then you overcome it. Its what professional sportsmen do.

If Manly were that much better, it being a little bit colder here isnt really relevent.

That can happen in any game though. Plenty of teams get lucky calls, but not all are good enough to take advantage of them.

Dear me. It's less to do with the weather and more to do with the travelling several thousand miles and not being match fit. How hard is that to understand?

And for the last time, it's not about Leeds or Manly, it's about the concept as a whole.

Are you trolling or just bitter?
The Webb bomb spill quite clearly went backwards. Take a look at where Webb touches the ball and where the ball hits the ground.
As for forward passes - there were just as many forward passes by Manly not penalised as there were by Leeds, despite Manly's unwillingness to spread the play.
To class the ref as having a "shocker in Leeds' favour" and Leeds as "cheating the rules" is frankly bizarre and I have to question which game you were watching. What I saw was raised elbows, holding down and several dangerous tackles from Manly go pretty much unpunished aside from a penalty.