NRL: Sea Eagles beat Roosters in battle of the birds

Tony Williams of the Sea Eagles dives over to score a try. Photo / Getty Images

Manly 36 Sydney Roosters 8

A ruthlessly efficient 36-8 win by Manly over the Sydney Roosters has come at a cost with co-captain Jason King, winger William Hopoate and centre Steve Matai all suffering injuries.

King, the cornerstone of the Sea Eagles' bruising pack, was forced to leave the Brookvale Oval field after 20 minutes and early reports suggested he could miss the rest of the season with a pectoral injury.

Hopoate left the field after scoring two tries to have his hamstring iced, while Matai, who also bagged a try double, went down with an apparent neck problem in the match's dying minutes.

Manly consolidated second place on the ladder with the eight tries to two victory in front of 13,745 fans in stormy conditions, while the hapless Roosters are yet to win away this year and remain in a fight to avoid the wooden spoon.

As well as Hopoate and Matai, Jamie Lyon, Daly Cherry-Evans, Glenn Stewart and Tony Williams scored tries for the Sea Eagles, while Lyon had an off day with the boot with two from eight.

For the Roosters, Aidan Guerra and Phil Graham scored four-pointers, while Todd Carney missed with two conversion attempts.

The Sea Eagles led 12-0 after three first-half tries and extended that by four just five minutes after the break when Glenn Stewart picked up the ball from the back of a scrum 10m out and dummied his way to the line.

It was 22-0 four minutes later when wrecking ball Williams ran over Mitchell Pearce and Lyon finally nailed a conversion.

It started getting embarrassing for the Roosters when Kieran Foran was ruled to have performed a one-on-one strip on Jason Ryles and the five-eighth sent centre Matai over.

The Roosters got one back through Guerra in the 63rd before Hopoate's second four minutes later from a superb Brett Stewart offload.

Matai's second, when he slammed the ball down despite being held by several Roosters defenders, made it 36-4 before the Roosters scored the try of the match, Graham completing an amazing length of the field effort in the final minute.

MANLY 36 (W Hopoate 2 S Matai 2 D Cherry-Evans J Lyon G Stewart T Williams tries J Lyon 2 goals) bt SYDNEY ROOSTERS 8 (P Graham A Guerra tries) at Brookvale Oval. Referee: Matt Cecchin, Tony De Las Heras. Crowd: 13,743.

- AAP