NRL: New Zealand Warriors disappoint again in thrashing by Manly Sea Eagles

The Warriors react after Manly score. Photosport

Manly Sea Eagles 44 New Zealand Warriors 12

The Warriors' season couldn't end soon enough. The sad fact is they've still got 11 games to go.

Another heavy defeat with few positives leaves them languishing in no man's land this season. On paper the Manly Sea Eagles should have been an even match-up for Nathan Brown's men, sitting two points above on the table and without Origin star Daly Cherry-Evans, but you wouldn't have thought that watching the two teams that ran out in Sydney.

The Warriors were dreadful in the first half where 92 percent of the game was played inside their own half. They completed just four sets in the opening 30 minutes in which the home side made the most of the territory advantage to take a 24-0 lead into the break.

To their credit the floodgates could have really opened as the Warriors faced a similar thrashing they received from the Melbourne Storm in round seven - but they produced a stronger effort for parts of the second half. But the damage was done.

A fifth straight defeat for the Warriors and their second largest of the season.

Manly showed up for a physical encounter and the Warriors didn't seem interested in countering. The Sea Eagles opened with a fairly simple try in just the sixth minute when Toafofoa Sipley dived over from dummy half and stretched the lead four minutes later when Kieran Foran set up Haumole Olakau'atu who tormented the Warriors all night.

Reuben Garrick kicked a penalty which extended the lead to 14-0 but with the Warriors failing to get near their tryline it seemed a very safe option.

The dagger came for the Warriors in the 25th minute when Bunty Afoa was sin-binned for holding back Garrick off the ball who was denied a try by the NRL bunker. But Marty Taupau then scored from the first Manly tackle despite four Warriors around him. Although there was little evidence to prove that he actually got the ball on the line.

Manly then repeated the dose on the kickoff going straight through some more weak Warriors tackling to score a second try in three minutes, with Josh Schuster finishing in the lefthand corner.

The Warriors did show some fight after the break led by Chanel Harris-Tavita however he had little help from Shaun Johnson for much of the game. Jack Murchie and Afoa scored consolation tries as the Warriors finally got their hands on the ball but the lack of effort in the first half hurt them.

Garrick scored two second half tries to finish with 24 points while the game was capped off by a Reece Walsh intercept to Jason Saab who run 80 metres for Manly's seventh try of the night.

The Warriors didn't win a game in May and with games against the seventh-placed Sharks and top of the table Panthers coming up on the calendar, it appears there could be no end in sight to the current winning drought.