Manly compounded Canterbury's miserable start to the 2013 season with a dominant 20-6 win at ANZ Stadium in Round 5.
Still missing James Graham, Sam Kasiano, Greg Eastwood and Krisnan Inu, the Bulldogs struggled to keep up with a fast-starting Manly outfit as Brett Stewart and Jamie Lyon showed their class. The visitors opened the scoring in the eighth minute through a swift backline move which was finished off by Jorge Taufua from a brilliant Stewart cut-out ball.
Stewart turned provider again 17 minutes later when he ducked out of a tackle and raced up-field before finding Lyon on his inside – the captain dummying past the last line of defence to score alongside the posts.
Lyon then showed off his kicking game with a perfectly weighted grubber for Taufua to score his second and it was 18-0 at the break.
Canterbury tightened up their defence after the break and it took a Lyon penalty goal in the 64th minute to finally add to the scoreline, but the going was much tougher for the home side who saw attack after attack shut down.
It was captain Michael Ennis who finally crossed the line with a huge dummy inside the final 10 minutes, but by then the damage was done and the Sea Eagles strolled away with a comfortable victory.
Manly dominated the game with 53 per cent of possession and running for 1607 metres to Canterbury's 1157. They also made 20 more hit-ups.
Anthony Watmough was exceptional for the visitors with 199 metres and 26 tackles while Taufua added 165 metres and three tackle-breaks.
Aiden Tolman made 125 metres and 35 tackles for the Bulldogs.
