Manly coach Anthony Seibold took issue with a couple of referee calls, but backed his side’s bizarre tactics in their 24-12 loss to the Panthers that has their season on life support.
Manly led 12-6, before a dubious try to Stephen Crichton levelled the scores before halftime and then a bizarre kicking duel tactic from Reuben Garrick gifted a try to Penrith and they never looked back.
“There’s a dubious call or two with two of their tries,” Seibold said in his press conference.
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Panthers boot Manly out of the 8 | 02:22
“We were going for broke there for the intercept and the return serve kick.
“It was massive right, in the context of the game. Those types of calls, it’s human error, but they hurts you, right?
“We had enough time, 40 minutes to go so I’m not going to whinge about it. Everyone knows it should have been pulled up and I can live with that because sometimes you get a good call and sometimes you don’t.”
Fletch & Hindy throw Matty to the dogs! | 07:25
However, not only was Seibold not upset with Garrick for his bizarre kick on tackle one early in the second half, he also revealed it was a tactic designed to upset the Panthers rhythm.
“It was a plan, yeah it was a plan,” Seibold said.
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“We couldn’t come here and just try and arm-wrestle them. We spoke about returning serve during the week and we practised it at training.
“One or two guys missed their job defensively otherwise we are making the tackle down there on Dylan Edwards and we are on top of them.
“We had to think outside the box because we were missing quite a few troops and we lost a couple in the first few minutes in the second half.
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Panthers Press Conference | 06:45
“I was proud of the guys, we showed a lot of courage tonight. It’s frustrating because we felt we did enough to win.”
Seibold admitted his side now have to win their remaining three games and hope other results go their way to make the finals in his first year in charge at Manly.
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