The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles were forced to dig deep in their 36-18 victory over the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in Redcliffe on Sunday.
We take a look at all the stats from the Rd 24 Telstra Premiership match and compare how the Manly boys are placed on the NRL stats tables.
Tries
Full-back Tom Trbojevic scored his fourth hat-trick of the season and also had a chance for one more if not to be stopped at the line. His three tries all came in the second half.
Winger Jason Saab scored the first and last tries of the match and could have had two more while impressive second-rower Haumole Olakau’atu scored his seventh try of the season.
Manly’s backline is arguably one of the most dangerous in the league at the moment with Trbojevic (22), Saab (22) and winger Reuben Garrick (20) scoring 64 tries between them.
With one regular round remaining, the three still remain in the NRL’s top try scorers list behind South Sydney’s Alex Johnston (27) and Melbourne’s Josh Addo-Carr (23)
Possession and Completion
Manly dominated possession with 61%. The Bulldogs managed to hold onto the ball better with an 82% completion rate (27/33 sets) compared to Manly’s 73% (33/45 sets).
Goals Converted and Points Scored
Despite not crossing for a try, Garrick was still highly successful with the ball on the tee. Out of the six conversion attempts, he kicked five goals and a penalty goal.
His tally of 12 points takes his total for the season to 286 points (20 tries and 103 goals), with Adam Reynolds still his nearest competitor on 248 points.
Garrick’s performance also saw him become the first player in NRL history to score 20 tries and kick 100 goals in a season.
Attack
All Runs: Manly 244, Bulldogs 171
All Run Metres: Manly 2058, Bulldogs 1392
Post Contact Metres: Manly 596, Bulldogs 411
Line Breaks: Manly 7, Bulldogs 5
Tackle Breaks: Manly 37, Bulldogs 12
Kick Return Metres: Manly 240, Bulldogs 147
Most Run Metres
Ten Manly players hit the triple digits for run metres with three of those running for over 200 metres.
Prop Josh Aloiai and Saab both ran for 214 metres (from 20 and 15 runs respectively), with Tom Trbojevic leading the way with a stunning 260 metres from 33 runs.
Prop Martin Taupau followed with an impressive 176 metres from 15 runs while utility Dylan Walker also managed to clock 150 metres from 21 runs.
Other notable efforts were Jake Trbojevic (142m from 19 runs), Morgan Harper (139m from 15), Daly Cherry-Evans (135m from 25), Kieran Foran (124m from 21), Haumole Olakau’atu (121m from 13).
Try Assists
Halves Kieran Foran and Daly Cherry-Evans registered two try assists with Harper and second-rower Josh Schuster recording one each.
For the season, Tom Trbojevic (25 try assists) and Cherry-Evans (22 try assists) still sit in second and third place respectively behind Rabbitohs’ five-eighth Cody Walker (33).
Intercepts
Cherry-Evans further extended his lead for intercepts with six for the season.
He sits two ahead of Tigers winger David Nofoaluma (4) and three ahead of Cowboys centre Connelly Lemuelu and Cody Walker.
Line Breaks
Trbojevic may have missed last week’s win over Canberra but he picked up where he left off with another four line breaks.
Saab, Cherry-Evans and Taupau each broke the line once.
Despite not breaking the line against the Bulldogs, Garrick remains in second place with 34 line breaks behind Alex Johnston with Trbojevic in fourth place with 24 line breaks.
Tackle Breaks
As well as finding gaps in the defence, ‘Turbo’ also boosted his numbers in the tackle break department with a total of nine against the Bulldogs. In comparison, the most a Bulldogs player registered was four.
Cherry-Evans (6), Walker (6), Olakau’atu (4) were among a handful of Manly players that broke a tackle in the match.
Negative Play
Errors: Manly 11, Bulldogs 7
Penalties Conceded: Manly 4, Bulldogs 6
Ruck Infringements: Manly 2, Bulldogs 2
Defence
With the Sea Eagles dominating possession, the Bulldogs had to make 46 more tackles than Manly.
The higher number of tackles brought more missed tackles, with Manly only missing 12 compared to the Bulldogs 37.
Canterbury made 310 tackles in total for an effective tackle percentage of 85.2, while the Sea Eagles had a 91.3% effective tackle rate from 264 tackles.
For Manly, Jake Trbojevic and Olakau’atu led the way with 31 tackles each.
Most tackles made: 31: Jake Trbojevic, Haumole Olakau’atu, 30: Lachlan Croker, 23: Martin Taupau. 20: Josh Schuster, Dylan Walker.
Croker still sits in seventh place on the NRL list of most tackles in a season with 873, two behind Jake Turpin (Broncos) and Reece Robson (Cowboys). Trbojevic has a total of 700 tackles and Schuster 465 for the season.
Kicking
Cherry-Evans led the way with boot to ball, kicking for a whopping 400 metres from only 12 kicks.
It took his season tally to 7704 metres to remain in second place, just 26 metres behind Panthers halfback Nathan Cleary.
