Manly hooker Dave Porecki capped off another fine display with the last try of the match
Photo: Carl Peterson

by Paul Cook –

This was some statement of intent from Manly. Randwick may be only flirting with the potential of finals footy at the moment rather than having any serious designs on actually winning a Premiership but they still presented a sizeable hurdle on their own turf to a Marlins side looking for their 11th win of an unbeaten season.

That Manly did so in such style, outscoring the Wicks by ten tries to two to run out 60-12 winners with a nigh on complete performance, sends a significant message to any other pretenders to the Shute Shield crown. This Marlins side is not only fostering a winning mentality, they are fast developing a ruthless streak to go with it.

Two tries in the opening quarter off the back of a dominant forwards effort, set the tone for what was to come and despite Randwick hitting back with their own five pointer, the visitors added another four before the break, three of them to try machine Harry Bergelin, who now has an incredible 16 for the season.

They continued where they left off in the second half, power, physicality and aggression the hallmarks that other sides are finding so hard to contain but with no little amount of quality also sprinkled in to the mix. Despite emptying the bench across the final half hour, the worry for everyone else is that they barely missed a beat with their replacements, keeping their foot on the throat to cross four more times and leave coach Phil Blake a very happy man at the final whistle.

Randwick’s Kuki Ma’afu finds it hard to break through Manly’s physical defence – Photo: Ric McLallen

“It was probably our best performance all year,” he told Rugby News afterwards. “We’d been heading towards something like this for quite a few weeks now where we’ve been really good in patches and had some low points but today was pretty much a full 80 minute onslaught and the scoreboard reflected it.

“I don’t know if they’ve come up against a side as physical as we were today. We knew they were going to be up for it and that they were going to challenge us through the forwards so it was nice to see the visible energy we had which meant we were dominant to the point where they couldn’t handle it. We’re in a good place.”

While Randwick coach Wade Kelly paid tribute to Manly’s performance, he felt that his team had largely contributed to their own downfall. “Manly are very good at what they do, they’re very direct and prey on your mistakes and we made 80 minutes of mistakes and gave them everything that they needed,” he said. “Full credit to them, they capitalised on everyone one of them but if you give a team that much possession it’s always going to be hard to defend.”

The Marlins didn’t take long to get into their stride, their first visit to the Randwick 22 in the 3rd minute seeing them come away with points as Dylan Sigg crashed over from a couple of metres.

A scrappy 15 minutes ensued with the Wicks having most of the ball but struggling to penetrate the Manly line with one too many passes going astray, to ground or behind the support runners. By contrast, when Manly found themselves inside the red zone again, they were clinical.

A typically combative surge from centre Mali Hingano paved the way before a jinking run from fleet-footed winger Dane Chisholm found the line. Chisholm was wayward with both conversions but as the game entered the second quarter, it was the visitors with a handy 10-0 advantage.

When Brian Sefanaia then scooped up a loose pill from the back of an unguarded Randwick ruck to race home from his own 10 metre line and Chisholm got his radar working to make it 17-0, it was clear that this was going to be a long day at the office for those in myrtle green.

They did manage to get on the board themselves in the 24th minute, a decoy run from Ethan Ford opening up a gap for Tim Wright to break through and put Elih Baillie over but it proved to be the merest of respites as the ‘Harry Bergelin Show’ took over in the remaining 15 minutes before the break.

Coming into the match with 13 tries to his name for the season, the flanker was already enjoying a remarkable run of try scoring form and his ability to be ‘Johnny-on-the-spot’ when it matters was in evidence again in the 27th minute as he threw himself into a pile of fellow Marlins on the Randwick goal line and somehow squirmed through to find the chalk.

Hat-trick Hero: Harry Bergelin dives in for the second of his three tries in the game.
The prolific flanker now has 16 for the season – Photo: Carl Peterson

When flyhalf Sam Vevae broke the line, drew the last defender and passed inside in the 34th minute, it was Bergelin running off his shoulder to claim his second and he went on to complete his hat-trick in the shadows of half-time. Lui Siale carved an opening off the back of some neat soccer skills from Mark Swanepoel and when the ball needed to go that extra half a metre as bodies collapsed on the goal line, it was Bergelin again who was on hand to get the job done.

36-5 was a mountain to climb for the Galloping Greens in the second half but they came out of the sheds with renewed vim and vigour to boss the early exchanges. However, you knew it wasn’t meant to be their day when, after four minutes of concerted pressure from the restart, Manly’s Siale was on hand to profit from a turnover and run the length of the field for try no.7.

The Wicks did score next, Tristan Goodbody driven over off a rolling maul from a 5 metre lineout and replacement Andrew Deegan converting, but that would be the last time the home side troubled the scoreboard.

Manly fullback BJ Hartmann went in on 55 minutes off the back of a dominant Marlins scrum before the impressive Swanepoel racked up the half-century 10 minutes later, taking a tap-and-go penalty to dive over himself and turn the screw on their beleaguered hosts.

With the visitors ticking along at a touch under a point a minute, you feared for the severity of the final outcome but to their credit, the heads never dropped in the Wicks ranks and the injection of flyhalf Deegan into the fray, gave reason for everyone else to follow his example of getting stuck in and fighting to the death and they restricted their opponents to just one more five-pointer.

Scrumhalf Mark Swanepoel was aggressive in defence and razor sharp with his service – Photo: Carl Peterson

By the same token, Phil Blake used the opportunity to empty his bench throughout the final quarter, so some lack of cohesion between new combinations across the park was to be expected, however, the physicality, intent and execution never wavered – an ominous sign of the strength in depth being fostered at the Village Green in 2014.

It was Dave Porecki who bagged that last try with four minutes remaining, the hooker getting his reward for another tireless effort with a dive into the corner after Bergelin had done the hard yards with a run and reverse pass to set him up. He doesn’t just score them, he’s often a provider as well.

Ten tries and 60pts at Coogee Oval for a visiting side is not a common occurrence. If Manly can continue in the same vein for the rest of the year, they will surely take some stopping from winning their first Premiership since 1997.

“Coming to Coogee is always a great day, Randwick’s got a lot of history and you know it’s going to be a good game of rugby so to bash them up like that and get that many tries is an awesome effort. I can’t remember a time when we’ve done that before,” said Manly’s try machine Harry Bergelin.

“It’s looking good so far, we’ve got Souths next week and they’ve put some form together lately but it’s a bit of an odd comp this year because everyone seems to be beating each other. We’ve just got to keep it up but we’re not getting too ahead of ourselves at this stage.”

For Randwick coach Wade Kelly, the lessons from this loss must be heeded and fast. “We don’t want to sweep this result aside because we don’t want to forget it,” he said. “We can’t just ignore it, we were poor today in defence and defence was our primary focus so we’ve got to look at it and learn from it and hopefully get back to where we were against Uni last week. Seven days is a long time in footy so hopefully, we can put it right next week against Warringah.”

Manly 60 (Harry Bergelin 3, Dylan Sigg, Dane Chisholm, Brian Sefanaia, Lui Siale, BJ Hartmann, Mark Swanepoel, Dave Porecki tries; Dane Chisholm 4 cons, Scott Daruda con) defeated Randwick 12 (Elih Baillie, Tristan Goodbody tries; Andrew Deegan con)