Viliami Lolohea's hat-trick gave the Junior Warriors a solid 30-16 win over Manly in their season-opening NYC clash at Eden Park today.
Lolohea, who had a brief taste of NYC football last year, used his strength to score his first from dummy half to open the scoring in the 14thminute.
For his second, 14 minutes later, all he needed to do was finish after being fed by halfback Jordan Meads, and his centre partner Sio Siua Taukeiaho laid on the third early in the second half.
The Junior Warriors won the contest comfortably enough in the end, but had some testing times to negotiate before clearing away.
Two converted tries had given Manly a 12-8 lead before Omar Slaimankhel also showed his strength by driving through from dummy half for the 40th try of his NYC career. That try allowed the Junior Warriors to take a 14-12 lead into halftime, setting a platform for a strong start to the second 40 minutes.
First it was Taukeiaho outmanoeuvring Manly's left edge defence to give Lolohea room for his third try, putting his side back in front 18-12.
The lead was doubled in the 51st minute and yet again the route to the try-line came from a dummy half effort. This time it was from interchange hooker Eko Malu, who somehow drove through several defenders to score for Taukeiaho to convert, stretching the lead to 24-12.
The Warriors had more points in them but weren't able to finish off some of the openings.
Instead it was Manly causing a flutter with a try in the 68th minute, before Siliva Havili finished it off with a stunner.
He had a forest of defenders in front of him but shoved them off, bumped them off and drove through them en route to an exceptional try. It was converted, and the Junior Warriors had won again at Eden Park, after beating Parramatta there last year.
