Knights suffer $3 million blow in big win over Manly
Scott Bailey |
Newcastle’s 36-16 win over Manly has come at a cost of close to $3 million of playing talent, with Kalyn Ponga and Dylan Brown both injured at Brookvale.
After Ponga hurt his hamstring and Brown suffered medial ligament damage to his knee in the first half, Newcastle still held on to go two-from-two to start the season.
Manly are now winless through two rounds, with pressure likely to mount on coach Anthony Seibold.
Newcastle appear a different side from the one that collected last year’s wooden spoon, but they could have done without losing Ponga and Brown.
Just as he did two weeks ago in Las Vegas, Ponga looked brilliant in his 28 minutes on the field on Sunday.
The Knights No.1 played a role in all of Newcastle’s first three tries, including finishing off their third and injuring his hamstring in the process.
The fullback helped Bradman Best send Greg Marzhew in for the Knights’ first, before being heavily involved in his side’s next try.
After running over Luke Brooks and brushing off three other defenders, Ponga then got to first receiver a few plays later and helped Brown send Dom Young over.
And while Manly hauled the deficit back to 12-10, Ponga was hurt when he dived over to make it 18-10 following a Best bust from his own end.
Brown suffered medial damage 10 minutes later while sending Fletcher Hunt over for the Knights’ next, hurt in contact from Tom Trbojevic after breaking the line.
The pair spent the second half watching from the sheds, with Brown wearing a brace on his left knee and said to be likely to miss at least a month.
What they saw was their team hold off a poor Manly outfit.
Luke Brooks let the opening kick off go dead and the day barely got any better from there for the Sea Eagles.
Trbojevic showed some fight as he got it back to 12-10 when he ran over from a scrum, while he also offloaded for Haumole Olakau’atu to score early in the second half.
But the No.1 spilled a bomb in the lead up to gift Tyson Frizell a try that made it 30-10 at halftime.
And while Olakau’atu’s four-pointer got Manly back to 30-16 after the break, Brooks again dropped the subsequent kick off and Young scored his second in the next set.
Manly’s day was summed up when Reuben Garrick broke down field late, but no teammate made it to the play-the-ball.
It marked one of 10 incomplete sets for Manly, who have a long bye week ahead until their former favourite son Daly Cherry-Evans returns to Brookvale with Sydney Roosters in round four.
AAP