Manly Sea Eagles

Cherry-Evans and Foran had two try assists and three line break assists between them while the skipper's kicking game tormented the Titans' back three all night.

In front of a raucous home crowd of 16,220 it was Cherry-Evans who got the ball rolling in the 12th minute with a deft grubber for Haumole Olakau'atu to score.

The lead was doubled 10 minutes later when Jake Trbojevic and Kieran Foran combined on the left edge to give Reuben Garrick a saloon passage to the line.

Stand-in fullback Reuben Garrick got the job done for a Manly side that easily accounted for a disappointing Knights outfit.

The Titans had a more eventful evening, luckily dodging a couple of sin-bins as well as a now-infamous pitch invader, eventually going down 26-20 at home to the Eels after a high-scoring four-point loss to the same side in round one. 

In heavy rain in Newcastle, the home side looked to have scored first through Dom Young but the try was overturned for Tyson Frizell's lead run taking out Kieran Foran.

Instead Manly scored the only two tries of the opening half with Dylan Walker's short ball helping Andrew Davey over and a pinpoint Daly Cherry-Evans kick sitting up nicely for Morgan Harper and a 10-0 lead at the break.

A series of ruck penalties and set restarts given away by the Sea Eagles invited the Knights to attack after the resumption and Kalyn Ponga crossed after a nice sequence of offloading.

The match was evenly poised at halftime, with the Sea Eagles leading 10-6, but Cherry-Evans took control in the second half and kicked a 20:40, a 40:20 and a late field goal, while also laying on two tries with kicks.

The Raiders paid a high price for errors and penalties near their own line in the first half and while they finished with 24 offloads to Manly's seven, the Green Machine rarely threatened in attack.

The Roosters kept most of their big guns on ice through the trials, with many of them working back from injury, and it showed in round one with the team struggling for rhythm against an energetic and disciplined Newcastle.

Manly took the opposite path, giving the likes of Tom Trbojevic and Daly Cherry-Evans big minutes in the pre-season but they still had no answers to a dominant Penrith side in round one. 

Saab – like most of his teammates – had a tough start to the season out at Penrith, with the premiers not skipping a beat despite the absence of Nathan Cleary.

Saab in particular was targeted, being forced into a massive eight kick defusals and being repeatedly pinned inside Manly's back left corner, finishing with just 55 metres and no busts.

"It was a tough game, they had a game plan and it worked for them but it was a good lesson for me," Saab said.

Last year the back three finished first, second and third on the Manly try-scorers list with Trbojevic (28) just ahead of Saab (26) and Garrick (23), while the next best Manly player Daly Cherry-Evans had 9.

Garrick concedes that playing in a back three featuring the reigning Dally M player of the year makes him and Saab the envy of every winger in the competition.

“It’s awesome because they play an exciting brand of footy,” Garrick told foxsports.com.au of playing with Trbojevic and Saab.

“I think everyone loves to see it and we love playing it. It makes it fun.

Cherry-Evans is already contracted until the end of the 2023 season, but The Daily Telegraph’s Brent Read reported that he is in talks about a one-year extension.

That would blow any plans Cherry-Evans’ junior club the Dolphins have to bring him home out of the water.

NSW Origin representative Jack Wighton was the star for Canberra, scoring a try and setting up another as they fought back from 16-0 down to scored three unanswered tries.

However, the big news out of the match was the injuries to Manly's Martin Taupau (back), Haumole Olakau’atu (arm) and Dylan Walker (knee).

Olakau'atu is believed to be the most series of the injuries and will undergo x-rays for a suspected broken arm.

Centres are always crucial and even more so in big games where defence comes to the fore because those in the No.3 and No.4 jerseys control a lot defensively.

You control that line. If you want to push up and tighten things up in defence it always ends with you. As a centre, you get to make that call. It's been known as one of the toughest positions to defend and decision-making is a big part of that.

You have to be alert to what's around you. There's a lot of decisions to make in attack too if you have a two-on-one or there's any type of overlap.