Foran relieved after Manly’s ‘whirlwind week’ ends with emphatic victory

OK time for us to shut things down here.

Thanks for being with us tonight.

We have two games for you tomorrow, starting at 4:05pm as the Rabbitohs host the Bulldogs, and then at 8:00pm the Panthers take on the Storm.

Should be a Good Friday, I hope you’ll join me then.

Bye for now.

Kieran Foran is not getting trapped into thinking this coaching lark is pretty easy after that display.

In fact, he said that he was so nervous today that he kept walking around Brisbane to work out the nerves.

“I was nervous, yeah, throughout the day. I mean, I was going for walks around Brisbane. I couldn’t sit still,” he says.

“I think I did about four, four or five kilometres just before.

“Naturally there’s nerves, right? Like you step into this role and there’s been a lot of… just a lot going on through the week and I just wanted it for the club.

“Look, I wanted the win tonight for the boys and for the club.

“Yeah, it’s been a disappointing start of the season and we all knew that.

“But they deserve that tonight.

“They’ve worked their backsides off all pre-season and we’ve seen how hard they’ve worked and the commitment that they’ve shown all through pre-season.

“They have poured everything into it and they deserve that tonight.

“They just went after it and that’s all you can ask.”

Kieran Foran is not getting ahead of himself, despite some questioning that suggests Manly should be challenging right at the top end of the ladder.

“There’s a great footy team in there,” Foran says.

“And we know that. It just hasn’t been clicking. But we’ve got a footy team there.

“It’s just a matter of building on that. That’s a building block, right?

“We haven’t started the year the way that we would have wanted, but that performance tonight was a step in the right direction.

“That’s not the end result. Yeah, 52 points was nice, but we finished the game poorly. We let in 18 points at the end of the game, but for 67 minutes, we were we were outstanding.”

Tom Trbojevic, who said he is fine and will be able to play next week after sitting out the last half hour or so of the game following a head knock, was just as pleased with the display.

“You look at … just how we started this year, I was really disappointed,” Trbojevic says.

“I think we kind of come together, and [the coaching staff] really challenged us to have a good hard look at ourself, and how we contribute to where we’re at.

“They’re obviously two of our greatest players, and to hear that from them, it’s when you realise you’ve got to have a good look at yourself and see how you can help and how you can contribute to a better football team.

“I thought the way that everyone responded to that was excellent, so… I’m really, really pleased.”

Kieran Foran is absolutely ecstatic.

Perhaps a bit relieved too?

Overall, a very, very happy first-time coach.

“I felt like that performance was coming,” Foran says in his press conference.

“You know, we’ve showed glimpses of that. We’ve been really, really good in patches. But the challenge for them this week was putting in a complete performance and doing it for longer periods.

“The week was great. The boys were outstanding. Obviously, it was a huge week. There was a lot going on. You can’t take away from that, but yeah, they turned up.

“They turned up tonight.”

He says that it was the players that took it upon themselves to simplify the gameplan a bit in the wake of Siebold’s exit this week.

“They took accountability for where things were at, and they decided to front up and go to work,” Foran said.

“And that’s all we’ve asked of them to do, to have a look at themselves in the mirror and turn up and put some pride in the jersey.

“They did that tonight.”

Prop Tom Gilbert is with Kristian Woolf.

He echoes his coach in saying that he is disappointed.

“It was a big occasion for us tonight,” he says.

“We prepared really well. We wanted to come out here and do a good job for our fans and our people.

“We walk off the field and we were only in it for about the first 10 minutes.

“The thing is, moving forward, we’ve got to stick together.

“We’ve got to have accountability. As an individual and as a group.

“You’ve got to make a clear effort to come back and come back stronger.

“You’ve gotta question a few of our attitudes tonight.”

Here is the Dolphins coach Kristian Woolf.

“It was disappointing,” Woolf says in his presser.

“It is a bit of a mystery [where that performance came from].

“I thought our preparation was good … I thought at the start of the game we created some opportunities.

“But we just became really ill-disciplined as the game went on.

“We were ill-disciplined with the ball … and we were ill-disciplined in defence.

When you give a good attacking side as much ball as we did, they become harder and harder to handle.

“It’s not good enough.

“We don’t know where it came from. We’re all disappointed.

“We’ll have to have a good hard look at ourselves and where we’re at and make some changes.”

Woolf is asked if he club has problem with discipline,

“If you look at tonight’s performance there is [a discipline problem].”

The Sea Eagles had 63 per cent of the ball in that game, completing a whopping 89 per cent of their sets, 41 from 46.

The Dolphins, by comparison, managed a paltry 64 per cent, 20 from 31.

The Sea Eagles had 199 runs to 127, making 1,965 metres to 1,306, those Dolphins stats padded by their last-10-minute surge.

The Dolphins missed 39 tackles in the game and made 14 errors to five.

They also conceded nine penalties to three.

It was a horror show up on the Redcliffe Peninsula.

It wasn’t a great one for the Dolphins.

Incredibly, it was the equal-biggest win by a team in the match after sacking their coach in history.

The man who Kieran Foran now holds that record with is Dolphins coach Kristian Woolf’s margin of 34 on debut at Newcastle in 2019.

We’ll be waiting to hear from the coaches after this one, I think.

I, for one, am glad that I’m nowhere near Kristian Woolf at the moment, because I imagine he’s ready to blow his top.

Reuben Garrick is pretty happy.

You’d say he has every reason to be pleased.

What a performance from the Sea Eagles.

“Very proud,” he tells ABC Sport.

“It’s been a tough few weeks back home, so for all the boys to get away and really turn it on up here, it’s a massive effort.”

Listen to the call here.

Kodi Nikorima has just been speaking to ABC Sport.

He says it “wasn’t good enough” from the Dolphins.

Loading

“Disappointed. That just wasn’t good enough,” he says.

“It was nice to, I guess, put on a couple of tries late.

“But at the end of the day, very disappointed.”

Listen to the call here.

The Sea Eagles have a win!

AND WHAT A WIN!

Manly smash the Dolphins 52-18!

They score nine tries unanswered until that bizarre late flurry of three tries in five minutes to end the game.

Jamal Fogarty is good from 8 of his 11 kicks, missing a long-range penalty and two first half conversions.

Jamayne Isaako is 3/3 from his kicks.

They go to the right.

Then they go to the left.

But Reuben Garrick just about held on to the jersey of Selwyn Cobbo as he attempted to offload back inside and the ball went foward.

Cobbo staggered as he got up – his head had slammed into the turf in the tackle.

He’s a category one, so he’ll have to sit out for a while.

The Sea Eagles will have a go from their own 20.

There have been four tries in the last 10 minutes.

Ummm, OK.

This time it’s down the left.

Herbie Farnworth got a bit of space, took the ball to the line.

He linked up with Selwyn Cobbo to make the break and then gets the ball back to score.

Another 80 metre try.

Another sideline conversion.

It’s 52-18 now.

Perhaps Manly shouldn’t have stopped playing after 70 minutes?

Loading

The Dolphins go 80 metres!

Jake Averillo made the break down the right side.

He has Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow on his inside – who scoots over untouched.

You can’t coach speed.

You can’t catch it, either.

The sideline conversion from the other side is good this time to add a smidgeon of respectability to the score where none should have any right to exist, is admirable, to a point.

The score is 52-12.

In their death throes the Dolphins give their remaining fans something to cheer.

It is a remarkable score from Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, racing across the field fending off a couple of would be tacklers before diving spectacularly in the corner.

Jamayne Isaako scores the kick from the sideline.

It’s 52-6.

Given the Dolphins had been lucky to be on 0 until that point, you’d have to say that’s a success.

The Dolphins will get the ball on the Manly 40 to start their set after there was pressure placed on the neck of the Dolphins runner.

Ben Trbojevic runs back inside, beats two tacklers.

Koula set off on a mazy run in which he twisted this way and that and then this way again.

Slewyn Cobbo came back and made a really good tackle.

But Koula got up, offloaded to Corey Waddell, who dived over.

Incredible.

The kick is good.

Manly leads 52-0!