Manly coach Des Hasler says he is more disappointed in the manner in which his team lost than the fact they did after an injury-hit night in Brisbane.
The Sea Eagles completed strongly in the first half but lost centre Moses Suli to a suspected compound fracture of the finger early on and had a second centre off for 15 minutes when Brad Parker underwent an HIA.
Hooker Api Koroisau was also scratched early due to an ankle complaint while there was a potential ACL injury to prop Toafofoa Sipley.
That meant back-rowers Jack Gosiewski and Joel Thompson were each forced out to the centres and bench hooker Manase Fainu was again called on for big minutes with back-rower Curtis Sironen filling in in the halves.
"We're probably more disappointed with how we lost ... than the actual loss," Hasler said.
Match Highlights: Sea Eagles v Broncos
"We identified at half time we were well and truly in the game, we were doing well with our possession."
Hasler lamented a failure to use the ball well in the second half. That allowed the talented individuals in the Broncos set-up to take the advantage en route to a 26-10 win.
"They just wore us down in the end on top of the positional changes but I thought we handled the positional changes okay," he added.
"We came off at 10-all at half-time with a couple of disallowed tries, one was definitely a shepherd, the other one was questionable ... We ran out of time and ran out of players."
Sipley was taken from the field in a medicab unable to put any weight at all on his left leg in the 64th minute.
Hasler provides update on Dylan Walker
"It's his knee, possible ACL, we won't know until we get a scan," Hasler said.
Koroisau lasted until the 57th minute while Suli was taken off after just 20. "Api was just ankle related, he should be ok," Hasler added.
"Moses is a possible compound fracture of his finger ... A broken finger doesn't sound much but compounded, that's a bit of a complication but we'll wait and see what happens."
Hasler also addressed the not-guilty verdict handed down to Dylan Walker and how soon the centre might be available for selection.
"Dylan Walker was found not guilty today which is a great thing for Dylan and his family," Hasler said.
"The last couple of months would have caused a lot of distress for him ... he was found not guilty in court, we now wait on the Integrity Unit to deliberate over the weekend and I think they'll do that fairly quickly over the weekend.
"[NRL Integrity Unit official] Karen [Murphy] has already been in touch with the club, they'll go through all the documents over the weekend and make an early call on it."