For Hasler, A Hangdog Hell

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday October 1, 2007

Greg Prichard

MANLY coach Des Hasler is big on body language. If he sees one of his players dragging his feet as he walks from the car park to training, he'll call out "body language" to remind him that people can tell if you're not looking confident or on top of things.

Hasler would not have liked his team's body language at the 28-minute mark of last night's match after another big break from Melbourne fullback Billy Slater had immediately been followed by a Storm penalty. The Sea Eagles turned their backs and headed towards their own line to prepare for another Melbourne onslaught.

Players were either looking to the sky or to the ground, but not to each other. It was as if they knew they would have to come up with a brand of resolve beyond anything they had previously produced just to remain in the game at half-time and did not want to catch each other's eyes in case there was extreme doubt circulating and it was infectious.

Amazingly, as it turned out, they were still in it at the break, mathematically at least, as they trailed only 10-4 after they had been down 10-0 at the time of that Slater breakout.

Still, Hasler was not happy with that. His tone at the post-match media conference gave him up. He knew the Sea Eagles were in trouble going to the break.

He was just satisfied that his team wasn't dead yet.

There was probably a three-try difference between the two teams in the first half, yet here they were, just one try apart. The Manly defence had cut up the Sea Eagles as had no other team this season. The only things that had kept them from going further behind was the desperation of their goal-line defence and some good luck.

Melbourne decided to bomb exclusively to Manly winger Michael Robertson's side in the first half. Maybe it was the pre-match plan - or maybe it was because they sensed a bit of uncertainty as a result what happened at the kick-off. The ball went straight towards Robertson, but neither he nor the next nearest Manly player - halfback Matt Orford - went for it.

They let it bounce and Manly began the match by scrambling off their own line. Starting sets from very poor field position was to become a trend for the Sea Eagles.

They just couldn't get a worthwhile attack going in the first half. They needed Melbourne to make a mistake and had to wait until the half had almost expired for it to happen. Storm hooker Cameron Smith dropped a bomb and Sea Eagles centre Steve Matai scored off the ensuing set.

But no one rushed to declare the try as a turning point in this game. You would have attracted some funny looks if you had.

The last thing Manly needed was for something to go wrong at the start of the second half. Well, guess what. Something went wrong - very wrong.

Storm five-eighth Greg Inglis tried to put up a torpedo bomb from deep in the first half, but the ball came off the front of his boot - end over end - and it did not cause any difficulty. He tried it again two minutes after the break and this time it was a ripper.

Manly fullback Brett Stewart took it - and got smashed a millisecond later.

That was the end of the night for Manly's most dynamic attacker - and so the end for Manly. Not that they were going to get back into the game anyway, but maybe they could have held Melbourne at bay just a little longer.

"I don't know, maybe we were overawed by the occasion," said Sea Eagles hooker Michael Monaghan. "To go in at 10-4 down really flattered us. It gave us some optimism that we could go out there and start again and get into the game, but they had been all over us in the first half and we had played some dumb footy.

"We came out in the second half and lost Brett early, then our right-side defence wasn't up to scratch ... Full credit to Melbourne, they just outplayed us."

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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