MARLINS GO DOWN FIGHTING V EASTWOOD
Manly suffered a round 2 loss at the hands of Eastwood on Saturday at TG Milner but they won’t be too disheartened after a marked improvement in performance from their opening game v Western Sydney.
The match opened with Eastwood’s physicality apparent from the get go, the Woods barged over from close range with strong carries from big backs and bigger forwards! Manly were quick to respond but with a couple of lovely raids down the grandstand touchline including a beauty of a pass from James Ohmsen to debutant Max Douglas. A few plays later Alex Northam was shown the touchline by his opposite and ‘Zippy’ took full advantage to score in the corner.
The rest of the half was a bit of an arm wrestle with both sides still looking a little clunky at this early stage of the season. Manly seemed to have the better running of things for a large period but were unable to convert pressure into points. Immediately after the Northam try the Marlins conceded a charge down try which was a real sucker punch. Trailing 19-10 with half time fast approaching the Marlins weathered a lot of pressure and when Harry Bergelin picked off an intercept the Marlins ended up running down field with Nick Holton crashing over to score on the stroke of half-time. Holton slotted the wide conversion and it was 17-19 at oranges, the Marlins were back in it.
The second half started brightly for Manly but again they could not convert the pressure into points. There was a rather dubious call of forward pass from Beaudein Waaka to Northam – it certainly looked pretty good at the Marlin end of the TG Milner grandstand…
Manly were starting to tire the big Woodies pack but they simply could not put enough phases together in attack to exploit this fatigue. Because of that the Woodies muscled over for two more tries from close range. With not much time left, Beaudein Waaka waltzed around his defender with ease, put the afterburners on then delicately kicked across to James Ohmsen in support who scored and put the Marlins in touch with 2 minutes to go.
Unfortunately the miracle finish never came and a few plays later the Woods had their win.
Clearly Eastwood are going to be a good side this year so it was a great hit out with plenty of things to improve on over the coming weeks. Certainly the games don’t get any easier with highly fancied Eastern Suburbs heading to Manly Oval on Easter Saturday!
Manly’s best: Alex Humfrey, James Hilterbrand, Max Douglas & Beaudein Waaka
