The rope-a-dope strategy backfired for the Broncos in the opening exchanges. I don't think there's any other team in the competition that starts as poorly as the Broncos and yet manages to score first. It's like they need to deprive the opposition of a try before they can click into gear. In this exchange, Manly scored three very soft tries, causing the Broncos to panic and blow opportunities.
In the second half, they just took it down a notch and were rewarded early. That try to Anthony Milford was a huge moment in the course of the game, getting the Broncos on the board and giving them some belief. Manly fought back well, but the Broncos managed to scramble well and when the opportunity arose it was the 1%ers that made all the difference.
The Sea Eagles are a fair footy team. They can trouble any team in the competition with their attacking footy and their goal-line defence can be inspirational. However they struggle to put it together over 80 minutes, usually due to ill-discipline or just positional errors. Once Trbojevic spilled that ball, the Sea Eagles heads dropped and like a lot of teams finding their way, they kept making cheap errors, enabling the Broncos to run away with it.
I thought the right side really upped their game in the second half, Sims & Thaiday were a real asset off the bench and I thought our spine players came up with some good options at crucial moments.
