The Sea Eagles had a strong start to the match,and held a 12-point lead over the Dolphins as half-time neared. But the Dolphins reeled Manly back in,with three tries in five minutes just before half-time to lead 20-16 at the break. Seibold said it was that poor defensive period that cost them the game.

“It was really disappointing that five minutes before half-time,I think that cost us the game ultimately,” he said. “I actually thought we fought really hard that second half. We lost Jason Saab early,and then we lost Turbo[Trbojevic] in the second-half,we lost our hooker Gordon Chan Kum Tong to a HIA,so a little bit all over the place.

“Five minutes before half-time was way off. They scored three tries in three consecutive sets,so that was disappointing after we played decent footy for about 30 minutes there.”

Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans said the team needed to fix their defensive issues ahead of Magic Round next week.

“We’re in here talking about the same trend again[losing a lead],so it’s something we need to fix,and it’s something that all of us can help each other with,” Cherry-Evans said. “We’ve got to change a few things obviously to get the result that we’re after because at the moment we’re obviously not working hard enough on a couple of things out there. We can fix it,we’ve just got to work a bit harder at it.”

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