By MARK CASHMAN

Eastern Suburbs travelled to Manly Oval expecting a bit of a smash up derby and that’s exactly what they got on Saturday.

The Beasties won 22-5 to keep their hopes alive of a spot in the finals but as Easts coach Pauli Taumoepeau said in the wake of the game it was a real arm wrestle.

“Momentum swung both ways and looking at it was only in the first quarter and the last quarter that we got any sort of pay,” Taumoepeau said.

“Absolute credit to Manly and the way they pressured us in that second quarter of the match. Then in the third quarter their defence was water tight in front of their grandstand.

“We just couldn’t get through despite having a real crack at their line a number of times.

“But I was really happy with the patience that we showed. We threw quite a bit at them for not much return for quite long periods in the game.”

The game saw Rob Leota play his first game for Easts and despite having played limited footy this year impressed many.

Easts will have a Super Rugby standard back row when all things come together and I am sure that Leota will be part of that.

“Rob played the first 50 minutes of the game and we were very happy with what he was able to do with not much time getting his head around our plays and systems,” Taumoepeau said.

“We just told him to position himself in the middle third of the field and if the ball came his way make sure that he got us over the advantage line – he did that and will be better for the run.”

Easts started the game well and were able to push out to a 10-0 lead thanks to tries from prop Archer Holz and Alex Newsome.

A yellow card to their hooker Mooli Sooaemaelagi not long after Newsome’s try gave the home side the numbers and they were able to score through Yool Yool, a player who continues to come to grips well with Shute Shield rugby.

The game then went into something of a scoring lockdown with Easts only pulling away from the Marlins in the final 20 minutes with tries to Daniel Donato and Jeremy Williams.

“Tom Staniforth and Jack Grant were busy for us all day,” Taumoepeau added.

“Alex Newsome also controlled our backline well when we were a man down which was great to see.”

Manly coach Matt McGoldrick was happy with his “fatties”.

“Our forwards went really well. Just a few too many errors at times from us,” McGoldrick said.

“We aren’t far away but we are putting ourselves under too much strain by turning the ball over.”

EASTERN SUBURBS 22 (Archer Holz, Alex Newsome, Daniel Donato, Jeremy Williams tries; Donato conversion) d MANLY 5 (Yool Yool try) at Manly Oval.

IMAGE: ADAM MCDONALD / MANLY MARLINS