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Joseph Manu inspires Roosters to big win over Dragons

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

An astonishing individual performance from Joseph Manu has inspired the Sydney Roosters to a fast-finishing 54-26 win over St George Illawarra that snapped a four-game NRL losing streak while keeping their finals hopes alive.

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But the victory in Gosford looks to have come at a significant cost for the Roosters, regular first-graders Billy Smith (knee), Sitili Tupouniua (knee) and Siosiua Taukeiaho (cheekbone) going down with injuries.

Moses Suli limped off for the Dragons just before halftime and did not return.

Both sides have designs on playing September football despite going into the round sitting outside the top eight.

With Luke Keary still missing through concussion, Manu shifted to five-eighth for just the fourth time in his career and wasted little time exerting his influence on the contest.

He first barged through the middle of the park and flicked the ball away to Victor Radley, who opened the Roosters’ account against the run of play.

Five minutes later, Manu forced a drop-out with a kick to the in-goal area, and made the most of the ensuing field position by barging over from dummy-half.

In the first half, Manu’s efforts were matched by Dragons captain Ben Hunt.

Hunt brought his State of Origin heroics to the Central Coast, spinning out of the Roosters’ goal-line defence for the Dragons’ first try and then landing an inch-perfect 40/20 kick to lay the groundwork for their second.

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The Roosters’ hopes of working back into the game were dealt a blow when Smith did his knee, forcing Manu to shift between the halves and the outside backline.

The tight contest threatened to swing in the Tricolours’ favour when Dragons prop Aaron Woods was sin-binned for taking Sam Walker off the ball as he kicked from close range early in the second half.

The Dragons scored first while they were a man down but Manu’s second try from dummy half was the impetus for a five-minute surge that produced two more tries for the Roosters and ultimately sealed the win.

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The floodgates opened with the Dragons defence capitulating once the Roosters found their rhythm.

Playing back at five-eighth, Manu set the Roosters’ eighth try up with a kick for Paul Momirovski and earned a well-deserved early mark.

The Roosters were down on numbers but mid-season recruit Matthew Lodge only made it onto the field for his club debut at the 50-minute mark.

He finished with 92 metres but threw an intercept pass that gave the Dragons a chance at storming back into the contest with 15 minutes to play.

The win will be crucial for the Roosters their hopes of playing finals football.

Had they lost, the Roosters would likely have needed five wins from their last seven games to play finals.

Five of those games are against sides that started the weekend in the top eight.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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