MANLY MARLINS V WESTERN SYDNEY TWO BLUES at Manly Oval

The Manly Marlins overcame a number of substantial hurdles as the eked out a tough 28-5 win over the Western Sydney Two Blues on Saturday.

The setbacks started late on Friday when skipper and fullack James Ohmsen was culled out the match after picking up a knock in the final minutes of training on Thursday night.

Fine, those things happen but they continued minutes into the match against the Two Blues when flyhalf Sam Lane couldn’t continue after dislocating his shoulder.

On came BJ Hartmann who had just played a full game in the Colin Caird Shield fixture and although at times it was pretty ugly they got the job done.

The Marlins ended up scoring four tries to one and iced what must be considered a very hand bonus point.

Manly coach Matt McGoldrick said: “It was a crazy, crazy week but we showed a lot of character and resilience to get the win.

“In the end I was happy with our commitment out there. We just needed to weather the early onslaught and we thought after that we’d end up getting away with it.

“Harry Bergelin had a good game as always and Max Douglas and BJ Hartmann performed really well in the unexpected circumstances.”

MANLY 28 ( Max Douglas 2, Adam Crerar, Ivan Fepuleai tries; BJ Hartmann 1 conversion, 2 pen goals) d WESTERN SYDNEY TWO BLUES 5 (Sione Fifita try)