- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Cronulla avoided becoming the fifth team this round to cough up a huge lead when they counterpunched a fired-up Manly side at Brookvale to give their top-four hopes a huge boost.
The Sharks looked as flaky as a croissant when the Sea Eagles stormed back from a 14-point deficit but managed to regain the ascendancy to inflict a 30-14 triumph on a Manly side whose own playoff credentials are now under serious doubt.
Ryan Papenhuyzen underlined his status as the NRL’s best player who is yet to play representative footy with a 36-point haul in Melbourne’s 64-0 annihilation of Wests Tigers at AAMI Park.
Papenhuyzen has been perilously close to Blues selection a couple of times before injuries intervened and he stated his case for a bench spot with a scintillating display in the Storm’s 11-try demolition job.
Double digit leads have been vanishing left right and centre in the NRL lately and Cronulla looked like they were going to be the latest victim.
They were dominant in the opening half to canter to a 14-0 lead but just like Newcastle (20), Canberra (20), Brisbane (14) and Penrith (12), the Sharks saw their advantage erased within a matter of 15 minutes.
Tolu Koula got Manly’s comeback started very much against the run of play when Cronulla five-eighth Braydon Trindall made a basic handling error in the red zone and the Sea Eagles returned the ball all the way after a dodgy grubber, Reuben Garrick flinging the ball inside as he was tackled into touch and Jason Saab racing infield from the flank to set up his centre for one of the best tries of 2025.
Koula then burst through a Nicho Hynes missed tackle from close range and a penalty goal put Manly back on level terms.
Ronaldo Mulitalo Sharks celebrates scoring a try. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
With the Brookvale Oval crowd suddenly finding full voice after they were largely silent in the first half, Manly had the Sharks at their mercy.
But the unlikely figure of journeyman second-rower Billy Burns triggered a late Sharks spree of three tries – first he forced an error from Reuben Garrick from a grubber for Trindall to pounce, he then created Ronaldo Mulitalo’s second four-pointer and added a tap-on to KL Iro for the match-sealing effort.
The Cronulla title campaign was in danger of going off the rails after a hot-and-cold start to the year in which they won just two of their opening five fixtures.
Were they starting to drop off after a few straight years of finals appearances where they came up short?
The addition of Warriors prop Addin Fonua-Blake was supposed to be the finishing touch on turning a good team into a title-contending one.
They turned their season around by beating Manly in their “home” match at Perth’s Optus Stadium last month and Sunday’s victory over the same opponents gives them four wins from their five most recent outings with their controversial extra-time loss to the Tigers their only blemish.
The first half was the kind of performance coach Craig Fitzgibbon dreams about – they were direct, clinical, nothing too flashy and able to roll their way over the stripe a couple of times, bang over a penalty goal for good measure and most importantly, they did it without conceding a point.
Apart from a short burst when Manly zipped in two tries, they always had the upper hand on Sunday and were rewarded for keeping cool amid the onslaught to polish off their opponents with three late strikes to rise back up to fifth, hovering around the fringe of the top four at 6-4.
As always the question remains about whether they can win the tight contests against the elite sides and they will get no better chance to rectify that reputation than next Saturday night when they host the red-hot Storm.
Tom Trbojevic looks like he’s playing to not get injured.
He did his job at Brookvale on Sunday afternoon as far as completing his duties at fullback.
But he’s not paid top dollar to be a run-of-the-mill player, the Sea Eagles need him to be a superstar.
The injury-plagued 28-year-old made 20-plus runs, clocked up around 200 metres and chalked up a line break without ever threatening to break the game apart.
To be fair to him, it is hard for him to have an impact when his pack keeps losing the battle in the middle of the ruck.
No Sea Eagles forward managed to rack up more than 100 running metres while the Sharks managed to get the home pack on the back foot with Addin Fonua-Blake giving them the impetus required.
This time last year, Dylan Edwards wore the unwanted crown of best player never to get a chance in Origin.
Papenhuyzen now holds that dubious honour.
Edwards went on to make his Origin debut and then establish himself as the Australian Test fullback at season’s end.
If the Penrith star is available for Origin in a few weeks, Papenhuyzen’s only chance of shedding that tag is if returning coach Laurie Daley gambles by picking the Storm fullback ahead of the more versatile Papenhuyzen as the bench utility.
And if Edwards did become unavailable, Papenhuyzen would be a more dynamic option for the Blues ahead of recycling Roosters veteran James Tedesco.
His Origin cause should be helped by Craig Bellamy being an advisor to Daley for this year’s campaign to retain the shield.
“I can’t remember too many players scoring three tries in that quick succession of time, especially at the start of the game, so he was certainly on the ball today and got some real rewards for him and the team,” Bellamy said.
“There’s a lot of good fullbacks around so that’ll be something for the selectors to decide but at the end of the day, he’s never going to let anyone down, without a doubt.
“Usually these days that fourth bench player can play dummy-half and play probably in the halves a little bit as well and I think he could do that well if he had to. At the end of the day, it’ll be up to the selectors and what they think but he won’t let anyone or himself down.”
Papenhuyzen claimed a club record when he amassed 36 points in the Tigers cakewalk from his four tries and 10 goals, beating Matt Geyer’s 34-point haul in 1999.
While his support play is second to none, Papenhuyzen often creates as many points as he scores with his ability to slip into the attacking raids on either edge to conjure up overlaps.
He registered a hat-trick of tries by the 16th minute, could have had a fourth early in the second half but for a costly fumble before crossing again a short time later.
After two encouraging wins over Cronulla and the Dragons, the long-suffering Wests Tigers faithful started dreaming of that mystical place known as the top eight that they vaguely remember inhabiting a long time ago.
But they were not only outclassed but out-hustled and out-muscled by Melbourne.
They only conceded three line breaks in the first half but managed to let in 34 points from six tries due to their inability to defuse kicks.
“We’ve got to be better than that, we’ve built standards that we want to live by and today we didn’t live by any of them,” coach Benji Marshall said.
“Everyone’s disappointed, embarrassed, probably a few other words you could use.
“There’s losing the game and then there’s being beaten, and we got actually beat today.
“We’ve got a team that usually fights for everything and I just didn’t see the same fight today.”
Here’s a novel idea – try to catch the ball when you can.
Papenhuyzen’s spectacular first try could have been snuffed out twice if the Tigers were more intent on getting their claws on the ball.
A few of them stood and watched as Xavier Coates claimed the easiest of marks in AFL heartland and when Papenhuyzen stabbed in his last kick, Brent Naden seemed more intent on shepherding the Storm star out of the way then batting it over the dead-ball line.
There have been numerous examples this year of players from all teams getting caught out in defence because they are more focused on being an escort when a high ball goes up rather than catching it.
Players get trained to within an inch of their life about running interference for kicks without giving away a penalty but they are over-complicating a simple game when always the most important aspect of play getting the damn ball for that kinda crucial thing known as possession.
with AAP