‘Horrible’: Brown laments lack of attacking options
Warriors coach Nathan Brown conceded a “horrible” attacking display was ultimately damning in his team’s 13-12 NRL loss to the Sea Eagles in Gosford on Friday night.
The Warriors were strong favourites ahead of the match, as the depleted Sea Eagles had averaged almost 40 points conceded a game in a winless start to the season.
It was meant to be a chance to build on a promising first month but instead turned into a nightmare.
Manly are a limited side but gained confidence across the 80 minutes, helped by a lamentable attacking display by the Warriors.
The passing was stilted and inaccurate, handling was poor and the playmakers struggled to find the right options. The Warriors had a ton of ball inside Manly territory but seemed to invent new ways to blow attacking opportunities.
“I thought our effort was first-class defensively,” said Brown. “They got two tries from kicks and [we] obviously worked really hard when we didn’t have the ball, [but] with the ball, we were just horrible. We just didn’t get anywhere near where we needed to.”
Aside from Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, the spine was poor. Hooker Wayde Egan worked hard but made some poor decisions, while halves Sean O’Sullivan and Kodi Nikorima were ineffective, well below the standard they set against the Raiders.
“We let ourselves down,” said Brown. “Our players in the key positions didn’t quite get us in the right areas enough and stay in the right areas.
“Roger is doing some good stuff for us but we didn’t help Roger get in the right positions because we just got all our attack wrong.”
At 6-6 late in the first half, the Warriors turned down a penalty in front of the posts, then coughed up the ball after a poor pass put the receiver under pressure.
“That probably summed up where we were at,” said Brown. “We were quite confident in the players we had out there to create something and instead we came up with an error on play two.”
Manly were willing and tried hard but were full of errors themselves (16 across the match), and at times, the contest degenerated into a dance of the desperates.
Brown listed nine errors inside Manly territory in the first half alone, when more composure and cohesion could have helped the team build a comfortable advantage.
But the key moment came in the third quarter. Ahead 12-6, the Warriors had four consecutive sets camped in Manly territory.
But aside from forcing two goalline dropouts, they couldn’t engineer much. There was no structure, no deception, no variation and little momentum, which ultimately meant predictable crash balls to the outside were easily dealt with.
A tame grubber ended that spell and Manly rallied, looking the more likely team in the final quarter, after a fortuitous try to level.
“We didn’t expect to be perfect on a short week with lots of blokes not playing, but we certainly should have been a lot, lot better than what we were with the ball,” said Brown. “Offensively, we were poor, so I’ve got to take some responsibility for that.”
The inability to set for a field goal was also telling, with O’Sullivan miscuing his attempt, while Nikorima elected to run the ball after being crowded out by the Manly chasers, before Daly Cherry-Evans made no mistake with his last-second shot.
“He rarely misses, when he gets the opportunity,” said Brown. “But the game probably shouldn’t have got to that stage.”