Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans isn’t giving up on his side just yet after they fell 40-6 against the Storm at AAMI Park on Sunday afternoon.
The Sea Eagles are holding on to seventh spot on the NRL ladder after two successive losses, but according to their captain, it’s a fairly simple fix.
“Unfortunately we just haven’t been able to do our job properly the last two weeks,” Cherry-Evans said.
“You can’t afford to play poorly against Melbourne Storm, or you end up losing by a lot.
“We’ve made a lot of errors and missed a lot of tackles the last two weeks. Now that we’ve addressed it, we’ve got to find a way to improve on that really quickly.”
Asked if his team are low on confidence, Cherry-Evans admitted the last few weeks haven’t helped.
“Every week’s a mental battle when you’re playing a game of footy, in regards to have your confidence knocked around," he said.
"It’s certainly not stopping us from getting to training and performing. We just need to train harder and I’ve got no doubt we can come through the other side.”
Manly coach Trent Barrett didn’t hold back when asked about whether he took positives from Sunday's performance.
“It’s pretty hard to find a positive in that,” Barrett said.
“In the first half, we came up with a good try. But we came up with some dumb plays, ill-disciplined ones and showed no respect for the footy. But unless you’re perfect against those top teams, you get beat.
“We just have to rock up and fix it, and train hard. Its not the end of the world, we’d certainly like to be sitting here after a much better performance. But there’s still 10 points to get in the competition, we’re a chance of getting them all. And beyond that, who knows.
“We’ve got the Roosters at home, we need a good performance in front of our home crowd."
The onus fell on the whole group to perform but particularly the more experienced players in the team.
“It’s no secret what’s been going wrong for us,” Cherry-Evans said.
“We need to address it. It certainly helps when our senior players respond to it. It’s definitely to be upon the senior players to lead the way, but we’re a side that needs every man on deck. We’ll be looking to work as a team, no individuals."
Barrett denied that the salary cap investigation had affected their side’s on-field performance.
“I’d like to think not. It doesn’t help but it’s not an excuse,” Barrett said.
