Preliminary Final Souths v Manly

[TITAN PETE]

RABBITOHS V SEA EAGLES- 27TH SEPTEMBER, 7:45PM, ANZ STADIUM| #NRLFINALS

Rabbitohs

1 Greg Inglis
2 Nathan Merritt
3 Bryson Goodwin
4 Dylan Walker
5 Dylan Farrell
6 John Sutton
7 Adam Reynolds
8 Dave Tyrrell
9 Issac Luke
10 Luke Burgess
11 Sam Burgess
12 Ben T'eo
13 Jeff Lima

Interchange
14 Jason Clark
15 Roy Asotasi
16 Chris McQueen
17 George Burgess

Coach:Michael Maguire

Sea Eagles

1. Brett Stewart
2. Jorge Taufua
3. Jamie Lyon (c)
4. Steve Matai
5. David Williams
6. Kieran Foran
7. Daly Cherry-Evans
8. Brenton Lawrence
9. Matt Ballin
10. Brent Kite
11. Anthony Watmough
12. Justin Horo
13. Glenn Stewart

Interchange
14. Richie Fa’aoso
15. Jamie Buhrer
16. Tom Symonds
17. George Rose

Coach: Geoff Toovey

[TITAN PETE]

No fatigue factor for swooping Eagles
By Adrian Warren
AAP
10:17pm Fri 27th September, 2013


So much for fatigue.

All the doubters who reckoned Manly would tire after two gruelling finals and fade against a fresher Souths in Friday's NRL preliminary were proven horribly wrong.

The sceptics probably felt vindicated when the Rabbitohs scampered to a 14-0 lead in as many minutes.

A first premiership in 42 long years seemed with reach, but the trouble was noone told Manly., who refused to follow the script.

All those years of finals experience stood them in good stead, as they plied on 30 straight points, 24 of them after halftime, to set up a memorable 30-20 win.

Serial finals performers like centre Jamie Lyon, fullback Brett Stewart and winger David Williams shoved their way to the forefront.

Williams, who has yet to commit to Manly next year, sealed another grand final appearance with one of the more extraordinary tries of the season.

The winger twisted at a seemingly impossible angle to stay in the field of play and ground the ball despite Souths fullback Greg Inglis desperately clinging on to the "Wolfman."

South Sydney's two longest serving players and much-loved local products John Sutton and Nathan Merritt got their side off to a dream start.

Each scored a try, with Merritt's four-pointer enabling him to equal the club's all-time record tally of 144 set by Benny Wearing.

That was as good as it got for Souths, who pulled off a series of try saving tackles just before halftime before the dam broke after halftime.

[TITAN PETE]

Manly into NRL decider after 30-20 win
By By Steve Jancetic
AAP
11:33pm Fri 27th September, 2013



Manly are into their fourth grand final in seven years as South Sydney stumbled at the penultimate hurdle for the second straight year with a heartbreaking 30-20 NRL preliminary final loss to the Sea Eagles at ANZ Stadium.

Seeking to end a 42-year wait to reach the decider, the Rabbitohs stumbled when the grand final berth seemed theirs for the taking - a 14-0 lead at better than a point a minute the perfect start.

But somehow it slipped through their fingers to a Manly side building one of the NRL's great dynasties.

They piled on 30 straight points to silence the Souths faithful who made up the majority of the 44,546 crowd.

It capped a devastating day for Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire, whose mother passed away earlier in the day after a battle with illness.

Glenn Stewart could be an unlikely grand final starter even if the Sea Eagles progress, with a high tackle on Sam Burgess landing him on report in the fourth minute.

His missed tackle on the tryline gifted John Sutton one of the easiest tries of his long career, before the Sea Eagles back-rower coughed up possession near halfway without a defender within touching distance.

The Bunnies took full toll with Nathan Merritt scoring to make it 14-0 after 12 minutes - the winger equalling Benny Wearing's club record 144 tries as Adam Reynolds became just the second Rabbitoh after Eric Simms to kick 100 goals in a season.

It seemed a case of how many for Souths as the toll of two tough finals matches appeared to have finally caught up with Manly, before Glenn Stewart began his redemption story with a clever grubber to set up brother Brett as the Sea Eagles scored against the run of play.

Momentum swung wildly as Manly peppered the Bunnies line - but South Sydney held firm including one amazing set containing four goal-line try-savers - two by Greg Inglis who was huge in defence yet quiet in attack.

Halftime had seemingly stymied Manly's charge, but the break only served to recharge the batteries with Brett Stewart's brilliant sleight of hand sending Matt Ballin over down the blindside, the Sea Eagles trailing by just two five minutes after the restart.

Sam Burgess could have stopped the rot only to drop the ball over the tryline, Jamie Lyon making no such mistake as he became the fourth Sea Eagle to notch 1000 points for the club to give his side a lead seemingly unimaginable 20 minutes earlier.

David Williams produced a remarkable piece of acrobatic genius to touch down in the corner just after the hour mark - Tom Symonds kick-starting the party with eight minutes to go when he regathered a charge down on Adam Reynolds to score in front of an emptying 'Burrow' section of the crowd.

Manly coach Geoff Toovey saw the key to the win as his side's resilience after the early onslaught.

"Fantastic effort, they should be very proud of themselves, we just hung in there after such a terrible start," Toovey said.

"Us hanging in there gave us the opportunity to come away with the points."

On the Stewart high tackle, Toovey said, when asked if he would be disappointed if that ruled him out of a grand final: "It's not up to me but from what I saw there's been 100s of them during the year and no one has seen to have copped anything.

"I'd be surprised."

Toovey confirmed prop Richie Fa'aoso had been taken to hospital for scans on a neck injury sustained in the first half.

It was a sombre Maguire and John Sutton at the post-match press conference, the Souths coach hoping his men could build from the defeat.

"We'll learn lessons, it's a tough change room in there at the moment, a lot of disappointed players," Maguire said.

"We've got to get stronger from this as a team and a club and we have to go into the next chapter."

Added Sutton: "To go out like that, just devastated.

"I couldn't believe it - just that second half wasn't the way we play."

[TITAN PETE]

Stewart not fazed by high tackle report
By Adrian Warren
AAP
5:04am Sat 28th September, 2013


Manly back rower Glenn Stewart insists he's not worried about a high tackle report that could jeopardise his participation in next weekend's NRL grand final.

Stewart was booked for a fourth-minute tackle on English forward Sam Burgess, who wouldn't like to see the Manly forward deprived of the chance to play in the season decider.

"What will be will be, but I'd hate for him to miss a grand final," Burgess told AAP.

Stewart said he would definitely feel unlucky if the incident resulted in his missing the grand final, but stressed he wasn't worried about the report.

"No I don't think so, it was probably a little bit lazy," Stewart said of the incident.

"I don't think I've got any carry over (points) and that (high tackles) is not normally in my game."

Stewart showed plenty of grit to get Manly back on track after some of his early errors were instrumental in the team trailing 14-0.

He missed a tackle on Souths' first try scorer John Sutton and the Rabbitohs second try to Nathan Merritt came after Stewart coughed up the ball.

His luck started to turn when what he described as an '****y' stab kick set up brother and fullback Brett for Manly's first four-pointer.

"I was pretty down and I just felt a lot of pressure," Stewart said.

"But you need to get over these things pretty quick in these games otherwise the game just passes you by."

"Luckily the kick came off at the other end, so I felt a little bit better.

"If that had gone the other way I don't know what I would have done."

Stewart credited his teammates with helping to lift his spirits after such a calamitous start.

"That's what we've been doing for a while, everyone shows up for each other."

Manly's fightback dispelled fears fatigue would catch up with them following gruelling encounters in their two previous finals against Sydney Roosters and Cronulla.

"I think we had a four-day turnaround, a five-day turnaround,and then this week it was seven," Stewart said.

"Next week will be nine, so it's only going to get better for us."

Souths were left with plenty of soul-searching after surrendering a large lead and ducking out at the preliminary final stage for the second straight year.

"It's tough to take right now, but we've got to learn from it," Burgess said.

"I guess we'll have a look at this game over the next few days and what went wrong there."

[C-Whiz]

Just watched the Sunday footy show, and they didn't address the question i want answered, which is "what is the difference between the George Burgess try that was deemed that he did not have control, and the Wolfman's try"?

Neither of them had the ball in their hand under "control" when it touched the ground, but they both had contact with the ball the whole time and they both had some downward pressure. Wolfman had more fingers providing downward pressure. Is that the difference?

Open to edumacation on this one...