Manly slumped to their fourth loss in five games when defeated 26-14 by a buoyant Titans unit in a sometimes heated clash at Brookvale Oval in Round 7.
The shock win by the visitors ended their own five-game losing streak.
In an explosive first half Titans Jamal Idris and Ashley Harrison were placed on report for high tackles on Jamie Lyon and Vic Mauro respectively, while Darcy Lussick received the crossed-arms gesture from the refs after upending David Mead in a dangerous tackle. In between these clumsy challenges the Titans ran in two tries to one to lead 12-8 at the break.
The visitors skipped further ahead when Scott Prince delivered a perfect cross-field bomb for Mead to score 11 minutes into the second half before Kevin Gordon outleapt the Manly right edge defenders to snaffle a Prince bomb and grab a 22-8 lead with just 16 minutes remaining.
The Sea Eagles’ woes intensified when two Prince penalty goals extended the margin to three converted tries before Lyon added some respectability to the scoreline with a try three minutes from fulltime.
Prince had a field day with the ball in hand, adding three try assists, while forwards Greg Bird (163 metres) and Nate Myles (132 metres) relished the tough stuff up front.
Jamie Buhrer tried hard with 16 hit-ups in the back row for the out-of sorts Sea Eagles who made an uncharacteristic 14 errors and tallied almost double the Titans’ missed tackles (39-22).
