Newcastle Knights Kalyn Ponga and Dylan Brown injured against Manly Sea Eagles
“We want to be the hard-working, gritty side of Newcastle and I think all our fans will be really proud of that,” Holbrook said.
“Obviously we’re going to lose two offensive weapons and I thought our offense was great when they were on the field… But [a 43rd-minute Haumole Olakau’atu four-pointer] It was the only trial we accepted. “There is great self-confidence coming from this.”
Dylan Brown suffered a knee injury during Newcastle’s second round match against Manly.Credit: NRL Pictures
In the picturesque autumn sunshine and with plenty of points to match, Manly had just enough time to take the lead from Newcastle. Trbojevic, Tolu Koula and Olakau’atu made the players do this with their offensive weapons.
But repeated handling errors (the Sea Eagles made 15 errors in total) meant they had no right to do so.
Two Luke Brooks tackles on kick-off, multiple knockdowns in game one, a scrum penalty for offside and Reuben Garrick making no tackles after a long break, allowing Newcastle to pinch the ball, resulted in Manly having a miserable afternoon.
Garrick’s mistake was the final straw for many fans who subsequently exited early.
The Sea Eagles failed to win either of their two home games this season under Anthony Seibold; The attention and pressure on their coaches only started to increase after they finished in the last eight last year.
“We were well below what we expected from ourselves,” Seibold said.
“We didn’t give ourselves a chance in terms of execution and we missed the mark with our contact today and the physical part of it. Nobody wants to make mistakes, right? But then what we’re looking for is the ability to show determination after that.”
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Manly will review Sunday’s clash before giving players the RLPA-mandated three days off in a bye week and Seibold insisted their poor start to the year “will not cause panic or change our programme”.
The Sea Eagles’ next match in round four will once again be at Brookvale and will be one of the most anticipated encounters of the season given former captain Daly Cherry-Evans is returning for the first time as a Roosters.
“The really good teams in the competition are winning 60 percent, the good teams are winning 50 percent, so we have 22 more games to go,” Seibold said.
“We need to improve a lot more than we showed today. But I have a lot of confidence in the group. That doesn’t change. But we were beaten very well today, so you have to accept it and find out why.”
