It's fair to say Mannering was not overly thrilled about making the trip and even less excited to be accompanied by a journalist, but in his role as Warriors captain it fell on him to represent the club alongside the other 15 NRL team captains.
For captains of the nine Sydney clubs, the function took only a couple of hours out of the middle of their day and did not impact upon their team's preparations. But for Mannering it meant missing a full day's training less than two weeks before the Warriors' round one match against Newcastle, and great disruption to his normal routines.
The early morning flight required him to rise at 5am before squeezing his 1.93m frame into an economy seat - no All Blacks style special treatment here - for the four hour flight across the Tasman.
Upon landing we headed straight to the Opera House where we waited for the other players to arrive, when news filtered through that North Queensland co-captain Matt Scott would not be attending.
The official word from the Cowboys was that he had suffered a back strain at training the day before and was in no condition to fly, but a disbelieving laugh and shake of the head from Mannering indicated he wasn't buying the line.
Privately he wondered why the Warriors could not be exempt from such commitments, given the demands of the trip, and he joked that he should have come up with a similar excuse, but he never let his frustrations become apparent or affect his mood.
Formalities soon got underway, with Mannering and his peers donning their respective playing strips before posing for photos and accommodating endless interview requests.
The event had barely finished before he was whisked off back to the airport to catch a late afternoon flight back to Auckland, having spent no more than three hours on Australian soil.
It would have been close to 9pm before he made it home, no doubt dying for a decent feed after a day of airplane food, and in need of a good sleep before Warriors training at 7am the next day.
He hopes now that being free of those duties can help him recapture the form that saw him win four Warriors Player of the Year awards.
Even if he fails to reach those heights, Mannering should be rejuvenated and more enthused to take the field each week, and that can only be a good thing for the club that has for so long relied upon him to lead the way.