Bugger...

Although the best performance I've seen senior put in for a long while.

At the risk of sounding like AP (where did he go? Banned?), Manly played with an 'intensity' that was superb to watch. I thought we made some poor decisions and a few mistakes that cost us field position/possession. We weren't that far apart, but some of their play in our 20m was outstanding.
Watmough is pure class.
Really enjoyed tonight, people have a go about the WCC but we had a good crowd, a good contest, an opportunity to see some of the world's best players and a chance to showcase our game.

Yeah second half Senior played well apart from a couple of mistakes but overall i thought Lee Smith was our best player. He seems to play well every week and i just hope the rumours about him going to RU are rubbish. Well done Smithy

If we hadn’t have come out of the changing rooms eight minutes late for the second half it might have been a different sorty.

No shame in being beaten by Manly. But I suspect Haslers team talk might have included - maim Burrow (Watmough did a class job at that - should he have remained on the pitch let alone be man of the match!) & wind Peacock up to get him sinbinned. We certainly missed Peacock more than they missed Perry(?).

There start to the second-half was awesome though.

a few points, bearing in mind i have not seen the game on sky + yet.

1- donald looked far more effective when he played on the left for me.looks wasted on the right.

2- we need a right centre. manly hammered us there.ablett is a decent stop gap and watkins has a great future but we looked very,very vunerable there.
fair enough we won't meet anyone of manlys class again this season but it's still a weak link for me.

3-i'm not sure we were that poor.manly were awesome and full credit to them. well deserved winners

Manly were excellent. No complaints from me about it at all. Orford and Whatmough were excellent, as were their 2 props.
The semi- frustrating thing for me was that once we started attacking them at abit of pace, and moving it quickly left, we caused them all sorts of problems.
Lauitiiti for me went from a 4/10 first half to an 8/10 second half. Senior was excellent, and Lee Smith was our MOTM (again) by a mile.
McGuire is frustrating at the moment, we know that there's nobody to organise next to him, and he's lacking support in the creative side, but in the last 10 minutes he started to show some invention. Before that he just shipped the simple ball, or took the tackle. When he's got Burrow and Webb around him is when we'll see the best of him.
Good game of RL though, alot of whistle from the ref but I think I agreed with most of it.

Given that 9 minutes into the second half, it looked like we could have had 40+ points scored against us, at least we showed some pride for the rest of the second half.

No complaints tonight - the better side won.

Smith was outstanding and Senior showed true class (I’ve almost surprised myself saying that) – god knows how we’d have done if there was a winger outside him.

It would have been a much closer game if we’d not had a little tem minute nap after the whistle blew fro the second half.

But got to agree with tad – it was our right side that was vulnerable tonight.

Other than what I can only describe as a brain fart in the first 10 mins of the second half by Rhinos we would / could have beaten Manly. I really enjoyed the game and feel that the Superleague is not a million miles away from the NRL as people would have us believe. Well done Rhinos!

did stuart play good

So despite your english ISP address you are a manly fan now... Is it relayed?

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.

You only win the grand final once in 10 years?

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

[url=http://www.skysports.com/gallery/detail/0,20501,12738_4991630,00.htmlpics from Sky[/url

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.

Like Smith, Burrow, McGuire, JJB etc?

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.