North Sydney recorded their biggest ever win over Manly at North Sydney Oval yesterday, and at the same time inflicted the Sea Eagles worst loss since 1988. The Bears ran in seven tries to two on their way to a 41-8 drubbing of the Premiers.
As the game began, Norths immediately found themselves camped on the Manly 20m line. When Craig Field was sent to the sin bin for a professional foul, it opened a small hole in the Manly defence, which Billy Moore took full toll of, crashing over to score North Sydney's first try of the afternoon.
When replacement Danny Williams dived through some sloppy marker defence from the play the ball, the Bears were ahead 14-0. Manly's only first half joy was a try to John Hopoate, after a dubious pass from Jim Sedaris, which appeared to go forward. At the break, Norths led 14-4.
Manly came out fired up after half time, but were simply blown away in the opening stages of the second half. The Bears scored three tries in the first ten minutes of the half to snuff out any possible come-back opportunity that Manly may have had. One try, in particular, summed up the whole afternoon for both sides. On the last tackle, around 25m from Manly's line, Norths passed the ball through numerous sets of hands before Greg Florimo, realising that they were going nowhere, put in a kick over his head. Manly's Craig Hancock fumbled the ball, and David Fairleigh scooped it up and ran 15m to score.
Jason Taylor converted all three tries, giving North Sydney an unassailable 32-4 advantage. Further tries to Dallas and Caruana, as well as a field goal to Taylor, saw the Bears pull away even further. Manly's only second half points came from a try to their best player on the day, Steve Menzies.
After the siren sounded, Greg Florimo invited the fans onto the field, and they responded, rushing over the fence to congratulate their heroes. Florimo was voted as the unanimous man of the match by all media and the fans, with shouts of ``Go with the Flo'' being heard long after the game had finished. North Sydney moves to 19 points on the Optus Cup table, just a solitary point behind Manly in the race for the Minor Premiership. For Manly, it was their third defeat in their last seven games.
This report ©1997 by Nick Leonard
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