Consistency the key to Manly going to next level: Hasler

Sea Eagles coach Des Hasler believes his side showed enough in their 28-16 loss to the Panthers on Saturday to indicate they could trouble heavyweight teams this season.

Despite a three-match winning streak coming to an end in Bathurst, Hasler was upbeat in his post-match press conference but lamented a couple of fundamental areas that let the side down.

It was only a month ago the Sea Eagles were pummelled 46-6 at the hands of Penrith in front of the Lottoland faithful at Brookvale.

The competition leaders looked threatening again in the first half of Saturday's clash but Hasler's men put up a far greater defensive front. 

"I was pleased with the efforts, that's all you can ask, but we want to go to that next level," Hasler said.

"We didn't play well today, we need to improve. [But] in saying that, the parts that we need to fix are the easier parts of the game.

"Part of the difficulty is you've got to be really disciplined and strong in those areas to compete with sides like Penrith. If we do that we're in a contest up to our eyeballs.

"There are some good signs, we just need to get more consistent in a couple of areas.

"They [the players] know that, there's enough experience there. We'll keep working on it. We got within reach of them."

The Sea Eagles opened the scoring via a penalty goal but conceded two tries in three minutes to gift the Panthers a handy 10-2 lead early.

"We didn't get away to our best start that we wanted," Hasler said.

"We let them down the field a little bit too easily and they're a very good side who pin you in your own corner.

"We had to come off our own line. When they do that they certainly had the ability to create points.

"The second half I was pleased we hung in there and fought back and got into a grind. We made some fundamental errors and you can't afford to make it against a side like Penrith and in yardage.

"You just can't give away [that field position] at this level and with the way they're playing at the moment."

The Sea Eagles will return to Lottoland next week for another clash against the Warriors. The two sides met in round five with a Daly Cherry-Evans field goal being the difference [13-12].