Battered Sea Eagles can build on brave win: Hasler

Manly coach Des Hasler was pleased his side was able to halt a three-game losing streak with a gritty 22-18 win over the Eels on Saturday but felt there was plenty more improvement left in "individuals" within the team.

Hasler also diplomatically took aim at a controversial Bunker decision to award Waqa Blake a length-of-the-field try despite a hint of an illegal strip on Marty Taupau.

"Apparently they thought he was trying to offload it," Hasler said of the 54th-minute incident.

"I thought it was a strip."

He refused to blame the officials for his side's plight, after a similarly controversial forward pass call against Tom Trbojevic caused a Manly comeback against the same side in round four to fall just short.

"Sometimes you have to make your own luck," he said.

"I thought the first half tonight we turned up really strong, tackled well, we were disciplined.

"I still think there's huge improvement left in individuals which is a good sign."

Manly has struggled badly since their star fullback tore his hamstring in the round six win over Canberra but neither the absence of Trbojevic, Dylan Walker and the suspended Addin Fonua-Blake, nor the host of in-game HIAs and rib injury to Moses Suli, were any excuse for the error-riddled second half that opened the door for a potential Eels comeback.

"I thought we played pretty strong in the first half but we gave ourselves some nervous moments," he said.

"We've just got to manage parts and areas of the game. We should have put them to bed a couple of times over in that second half. That's what we've got to get better at."

A fourth straight loss could have really started to dent the team's confidence, he said, heaping praise on the bounce back of skipper Daly Cherry-Evans after a below-par effort in the loss to the Dragons a week earlier.

"He was a bit upset, he sets such high standards for himself, I thought he was very influential tonight," Hasler said.