NRL: Sea Eagles edge out Tigers

Daly Cherry-Evans of the Sea Eagles celebrates with his team mates after scoring a try. Photo /Getty Images

Manly 22
Tigers 18

Des Hasler may have moved on, but the resolve and refusal to buckle in the face of adversity still very much remains at Manly as the defending NRL premiers came from behind to edge out Wests Tigers 22-18 at Gosford.

The Sea Eagles only returned home from a bruising encounter against the Warriors in Auckland late on Sunday night where they lost Steve Matai and Glenn Stewart for this game due to injury.

It was not the ideal way to prepare for a clash with the premiership favourites, and after going in at halftime 8-2 down and very much on the back foot, it looked as if their arduous trip across the Tasman would come back to hurt them.

The Tigers also had a short turnaround following their golden-point win over Cronulla last Sunday, and after a slow start to the game, opened the scoring when an ecstatic Adam Blair raced over in the 28th minute after taking advantage of a superb decoy run from Chris Lawrence.

Blair was at the centre of the Battle of Brookvale last season as a Melbourne player against Manly when he and Stewart traded blows on the sideline after being sin-binned.

A Benji Marshall penalty from close range stretched the Tigers' lead just before halftime, but Manly closed the gap with two points of their own from Jamie Lyon with the last play of the half.

It followed a dubious penalty call against Chris Heighington for tackling Daly Cherry-Evans without the ball that infuriated Tim Sheens' side.

The Tigers started the second half in the worst possible way with key backrower Gareth Ellis limping off after sustaining a badly corked thigh when tackling Anthony Watmough in the first play after the interval.

Fullback Tom Humble then spilt a regulation high ball right in front of his own posts and Manly skipper Jason King rumbled his way to the line for a rare try.

Lyon then converted a close-range penalty before Cherry-Evans capped off a brilliant 10-minute spell as he demonstrated his class with a magnificent long-range try.

The young halfback threw two dummies to wrong-foot the Tigers defence and race 60 metres to the line.

Geoff Toovey's side were very much now on top as the Tigers looked a pale shadow of their first half performance.

Manly sealed the points with a third try from Tony Williams when the giant backrower steamrollered his way past Robbie Farah to score with Lyon adding the extras to make the score 22-8.

The Tigers rallied well late with Beau Ryan and Joel Reddy scoring tries to set up a nail-biting finish, but the Sea Eagles held on to make it two victories from their opening two games.

Lyon kicked five goals for the hosts with Marshall converting three for the Tigers.

MANLY 22 (D Cherry-Evans J King T Williams tries J Lyon 5 goals) bt WESTS TIGERS 18 (A Blair J Reddy B Ryan tries B Marshall 3 goals) at Bluetongue Stadium. Referee: Gerard Sutton, Ben Cummins. Crowd: 17,532.