NRL: Stewart unfazed over high shot

Glenn Stewart's place in the grand final is in doubt after his tackle on Sam Burgess in Friday night's preliminary final. Photo / Getty

Manly back rower Glenn Stewart insists he's not worried about a high tackle report that could jeopardise his participation in next weekend's NRL grand final.

Stewart was booked for a fourth-minute tackle on English forward Sam Burgess, who wouldn't like to see the Manly forward deprived of the chance to play in the season decider.

"What will be will be, but I'd hate for him to miss a grand final," Burgess said. Stewart said he would definitely feel unlucky if the incident resulted in his missing the grand final, but stressed he wasn't worried about the report.

"No I don't think so, it was probably a little bit lazy," Stewart said of the incident.

"I don't think I've got any carry over [points] and that [high tackles] is not normally in my game."

Stewart showed plenty of grit to get Manly back on track after some of his early errors were instrumental in the team trailing 14-0.

He missed a tackle on Souths' first try scorer John Sutton and the Rabbitohs' second try to Nathan Merritt came after Stewart coughed up the ball.

His luck started to turn when what he described as an 'arsey' stab kick set up brother and fullback Brett for Manly's first four-pointer.

"I was pretty down and I just felt a lot of pressure," Stewart said. "But you need to get over these things pretty quick in these games otherwise the game just passes you by."

"Luckily the kick came off at the other end, so I felt a little bit better. If that had gone the other way I don't know what I would have done."

Stewart credited his team-mates with helping to lift his spirits after such a calamitous start.

"That's what we've been doing for a while, everyone shows up for each other."

Manly's fightback dispelled fears fatigue would catch up with them following gruelling encounters in their two previous finals against Sydney Roosters and Cronulla.

"I think we had a four-day turnaround, a five-day turnaround, and then this week it was seven," Stewart said.

"Next week will be nine, so it's only going to get better for us."

Souths were left with plenty of soul-searching after surrendering a large lead and ducking out at the preliminary final stage for the second straight year.

"It's tough to take right now, but we've got to learn from it," Burgess said.

"I guess we'll have a look at this game over the next few days and what went wrong there."

- AAP