If there was a defining image to sum up these 80 minutes, it was of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves buried beneath three bodies, his thick-cut legs flailing under a mass of maroon. It was 12 seconds into the second half, Manly were leading 12-10 and everyone at 4 Pines Park was waiting to see who would crack first. The hill was packed and teams were stacked: the Vegas victors facing off for a chance to maintain undefeated status.
Then Terrell May mishandled, and suddenly three tackles were gone and the Roosters were barely outside their own 10-metre line. By the fifth they had advanced to their 30, and less than a minute after Tom Trbojevic had gathered the subsequent kick, Tommy Talau had scored and Reuben Garrick had converted and the Sea Eagles were ahead 18-10. Two sets. Two minutes. One clear winner.
Even the 21-14 end result did not fully represent Manly’s superiority in the battle of brutality in the middle, where May and Victor Radley and Lindsay Collins were bested and the side had to make an extra 99 tackles just to stay in it as much as they did. That in itself was enough to indicate the Roosters will only find themselves in trouble this season if they allow errors and ill-discipline to blight an otherwise superb first-half goal-line defence.
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