Brett Stewart was known as the Prince of Brookvale, but he’d happily concede that Tom Trbojevic is the new king of the castle after Turbo scored twice, set up four tries and had five line-breaks as he led Manly to a thrilling win in his 100th NRL appearance.
The milestone man helped Manly snap a six-game losing streak at Lottoland as the Sea Eagles honoured the 2011 premiership team with a brilliant comeback win over the Warriors.
It wasn’t as emphatic a performance as the grand final heroics from a decade ago, but the Sea Eagles faithful won’t care after their side fought back from a sloppy first half to move within striking distance of the top eight thanks to their peerless fullback.
Trbojevic had a hand in Manly’s first six tries in what will go down as his best performance in first-grade, and one of the greatest individual efforts in history.
He is as important to this team as Andrew Johns was to the Knights, and his best is yet to come if his troublesome hamstrings can stay injury free.
“The scary part is he’s still building into the season,” Des Hasler said after the game.
“He’s managing it really well. He’s such a damaging player so he makes defences think twice. If you give him any space then away he goes. We’re supporting him well on the edges so we’re able to finish off tries and line-breaks.”
The superstar fullback had a freakish day in 2015 against the Warriors in the Holden Cup when he scored four tries and ran for 485 metres, but Sunday’s effort against men dwarfs that and has the Sea Eagles flying high heading into Magic Round and has some questioning whether he is the best No.1 in Sea Eagles history..
“He hasn’t finished yet. He’s still got a long way to go in his career, but he’s chasing some wonderful, wonderful numbers ones that have played for this club,” Hasler said, as Trbojevic chases the likes of Stewart and Graham Eadie.
“You expect them to have that kind of influence, and this fellow is no different. You see he’s attack, but he reads the game so well defensively.”
The Mayans predicted 2012 would be the end of the world, and Warriors halfback Kodi Nikorima would have felt like everything was crumbling around him when his brain explosion turned a 20-12 lead into a narrow defeat.
With his side in control, Nikorima produced a lovely move to get on the outside of his man to create a four on one. But instead of going through the hands, he threw a wild pass that dribbled into touch.
Manly scored a minute later and piled on the pain as Nikorima was left to curse what could have been as his team stormed home late to fall six points short.
“At 20-12, we should have walked over the line,” Warriors coach Nathan Brown said.
“From that point on, that’s where the game (turned). The error didn’t cost us the game, but it’s how we struggled with momentum when things didn’t go our way.”
Scoring points isn’t a problem for Manly but there are big concerns over their understrength middle which was exposed badly on Sunday by the Warriors.
With regular props Martin Taupau and Josh Aloiai missing through injury, the Sea Eagles struggled to defend the middle third against a team that spotted the weakness and attacked it relentlessly in the first half.
Chanel Harris-Tavita grabbed the first try inside the opening two minutes when he punched through a hole close to the line, and Tohu Harris followed suit later in the half to punish some flimsy defence.
Jason Saab didn’t have the happiest start to his career on the northern beaches, but he was one of the heroes on Sunday as he scored a hat-trick and came up with an epic try-saver to deny the Warriors a chance to kick from the sideline to force golden point.
The speedster raced across to smash Ken Maumalo into touch when it looked like the Warriors winger was going to score for all money in the corner.
It was the sort of effort play that had been missing from his game earlier in the year, but he has blossomed into a weapon on the wing for the rejuvenated Sea Eagles.
