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Message: [QUOTE="Big Pete, post: 2603084, member: 1899"] [B]Match #1 Manly Sea Eagles vs Sydney Roosters[/B] Grand Final rematch and the one game I was most looking forward to until the Broncos ruined my appetite for Rugby League on that weekend. Manly are the new big game team and always seem to lift for the big opponents no matter what while the Roosters are a good side dealing with the logistics of being the defending champions. Basically that was the story of the game, really. Manly won the big moments and when the Roosters had their chances they couldn't finish them off. In fact, I thought they played some really stupid football. With Watmough and G. Stewart out, the gameplan should have been pretty simple: play through the forwards, kick into corners and basically force Manly to do all the heavy work before picking out the pieces. Instead, they kept giving relieving penalties away and handed Manly a 10-0 lead. They were pretty typical Manly tries too. They're the best team in the competition with the sweep play and it was on show again but really those tries wouldn't have been scored if the Roosters showed some sense in defence. Roosters hit back through their expertise in using their edge forwards with SBW sending SKD over and then Cordner scoring off the play that sunk Brisbane. They're probably the best team in the competition at utilizing them. It really should have been their game from then on but some great kicks from DCE (40/20) and Stewart basically gave them 8 points which proved too elusive for the Chooks and even though they eventually hit back through Pearce, Maloney missed the kick meaning they had to play catch up footy which put them under all sorts where as Manly were able to ride home fairly comfortably, capitilising on the Roosters mistakes. When you talk about Manly, I don't think you can really talk about personnel. Yes, players like Brett, DCE, Foran, Lyon make a difference and are the best players in their respective roles but they don't change the style of play all that much. They're a team and it's very rare that individual players stand out. Even on this particular occasion, while Brett was the MotM (much deserved and my new fullback of the Round) it's very difficult to think of the next two or three best for Manly since it was such a team effort from them. Sydney on the other hand seem to be a collection of great players that have a couple of signature plays and strong defence but that's it. You can tell when they're missing players because it basically just affects their entire gameplan like it did tonight when the ball barely left the right hand side rendering the likes of Maloney and Tupou useless. That seemed to be their story on the night. A lot of their players had the opportunity to prove themselves in another big game and they went missing or stuffed up in key moments. Players like SKD, Maloney, Pearce, Guerra and Cordner all really disappointed and even Jake Friend, one of the best hookers in the game came up with a baffling play deep inside the second half. At the end of the day, I don't think this match will matter all that much come September but it really does show where both sides are at right now and if the Roosters don't come to their senses, then you can write them off for back to back premierships. [/QUOTE]

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