Manly have struck a lusty blow to Canberra’s NRL finals hopes with a see-sawing 46-24 victory at GIO Stadium.
Fullback Tom Trbojevic looked back to his best with two tries and two try assists, scoring his 99th and 100th career four-pointers in a lethal Sea Eagles attacking display on Saturday afternoon.
But it was not as straight-forward a victory as the scoreline suggests.
Two pivotal refereeing decisions took the game away from the Raiders.
Canberra looked the better side for much of the first half but were deprived of a try just before the interval with scores still level.
Adam Cook appeared to have dropped the ball after being sent in on the Manly tryline by Hudson Young.
But video replays showed the young utility smartly stuck a toe out before the ball hit the ground.
His try was not allowed to stand, however, as referee Grant Atkins had blown the whistle before Cook was given a chance to ground the ball.
Minutes later, Trbojevic wheeled away from a tackle and sliced through Canberra’s defence before finding Ethan Bullemor to give the visitors a six-point lead into the break.
"I don't know if you'd put it down as a turning point but it was a really important part of the game there, if we go ahead and go into halftime," Canberra coach Ricky Stuart lamented.
"I'm not gonna blame (referee) Grant Atkins for that but it was a poor miss."
Then in the second half, Raiders prop Joseph Tapine was sent to the sin bin for dissent after disagreeing with the bunker’s interpretation of a lifting tackle on Jamal Fogarty.
Stuart maintained that Fogarty's leg was lifted over the horizontal, blaming messages from the bunker for confusing the referees.
"Again, I don't blame the referee on that," he said.
"I blame the people that are in his ear.
"You get confused as a referee with all the noise in your ear."
The Sea Eagles made the most of their numerical advantage, scoring four-pointers through Taniela Paseka, Luke Brooks and Trbojevic in Tapine’s absence.
The win gives Manly a crucial two points in the congested race for the NRL’s top eight.
But skipper Daly Cherry-Evans believes there's plenty of improvement left in the team ahead of finals.
"We put ourselves in some silly positions when it comes to errors and penalties and six-agains (in the first half)," he said.
"So we addressed that at halftime, I felt like we came out better prepared for the second half, and our execution and discipline was far better."
Canberra will likely have to win all four of their remaining fixtures, including a high-stakes home game against Penrith, to make finals.
It was a disappointing end to an afternoon that had started with such promise for the home side.
If GIO Stadium had a roof, it would’ve lifted off when Josh Papalii opened the scoring.
Canberra’s favourite adopted son crashed over in the 10th minute of his 301st NRL game to the delight of more than 100 family and friends who made the trip down from Queensland.
After Trbojevic levelled the scores a couple of minutes later, young fullback Kaeo Weekes sliced through the Manly defence to get the Raiders back in front.
But tries to Tommy Talau, Bullemor, Daly Cherry-Evans and Lehi Hopoate swung the game back in the Sea Eagles' favour, before Tapine's sin-binning.
Consolation tries to Sebastian Kris and Xavier Savage added some respectability to the scoreline but did little to raise the Raiders' spirits.
