Manu Vatuvei. Photo / Dean Purcell
Rusty would be the polite way of describing Manu Vatuvei's NRL return against the Titans yesterday.
The talismanic winger scored a try and produced a handful of typically beastly hit-ups, but suffered the ignominy of his opposite number, David Mead, scoring a hat-trick.
"My attack was pretty average and my
defence was pretty poor," Vatuvei said in a brutally honest but accurate self-assessment. "I let in about three tries. I was pretty gutted about that. It is something I need to work on."
Having played just a handful of minutes in the round-one defeat by Parramatta, Vatuvei's rustiness was no surprise. The knee he damaged in a nasty collision with Etu Uaisele was sore after the game, but Vatuvei said it wasn't a factor in his performance.
"No excuses. It was just bad calls by myself and being soft in the tackle and stuff. I need to get a bit harder."
Coach Ivan Cleary produced an upbeat assessment of Vatuvei's display.
"It is going to take a bit of time to get those fast twitches moving again. It was pretty hard for anyone to come back from a big knee injury, and for someone that big it is a little bit harder. But it was very encouraging. I think he was pretty much error-free."
Vatuvei made an immediate impact, pressuring Mead into mis-playing a Brett Seymour bomb to create Lewis Brown's opening try. But he then provided a reminder his game isn't without deficiencies, getting sucked infield to allow Mead to cross in the corner for an immediate Titans reply.
Defensive blunders or not, the Warriors were happy to have the Beast back in the ranks.
"Just having Manu on the field was a big boost for the guys," captain Simon Mannering said. "He still did some special things out there."
