It is not often that you see a coach criticise his team to such an extent, but Brian Smith is not your ordinary coach.
For Smith, there can be no excuses for their dire performance against the Sea Eagles earlier today, with Smith labelling his side “diseased” after their poor performance.
Despite Jason King, Jamie Lyon, Glenn Stewart and Steve Matai all absent from their side, the players in their place stood up, and their young players continued to shine.
Smith is not one to beat around the bush at times like these, and he admitted that Manly were simply the better side on the day.
“It was very grim from our point of view, there’s no excuses, we had good preparation and plenty of time to get ready for it,” Smith said.
It was Manly’s physical approach that was too much for the Roosters, and Smith admits that his side just did not have an answer to stop it .
“That’s their trademark, they come to work hard, they bend everybody, they bend themselves, they bend their backs and work hard,” he said.
“They bend the rules, the bend the referees, they bent us, and they bent us right over today.
“They just play hard, they play any way they can to win, it is a good, hard professional attitude to have.”
He was also incredibly displeased at the amount of lost possession – whether it was through poor ball control resulting in errors and dropped balls, or the penalties conceded.
“There were lots of errors, lots of penalties … but I thought we made a good effort today, but it is almost mandatory under these new rules if you are on the back foot and the other team are outmuscling you, you will give away penalties,” he said.
“But we all had the measles today, it was a disease everywhere, there wasn’t just one or two.”
One shining light however was the return of Todd Carney, who missed the Rd 1 win against the Rabbitohs with a groin injury.
Despite returning however, Carney was not a kicker in this game, but any doubts that this was to protect him because of his groin injury were quashed by Smith.
“He has not had any kicking practice in the lead up to the game and we felt it was better to keep Braith,” he said.
“Todd was well below his best, but I bags not playing five-eighth behind the team that played like we did.
“It’s not a fair assessment of him today and he has to take his lumps like the rest of us.
“I think we will see better things of him in weeks to come.”
Dally M Points
3 Kieran Foran
2 Daly Cherry Evans
1 Todd Carney
MANLY 27 (K Foran W Hopoate A Watmough T Williams tries D Cherry-Evans 5 goals D Cherry-Evans field goal) bt SYDNEY ROOSTERSÂ 16 (M Aubusson T Carney S Kenny-Dowall tries B Anasta 2 goals) at Sydney Football Stadium. Referee: Ben Cummins, Tony De Las Heras. Crowd: 11,016.