Anthony Seibold has flagged a potential shake-up to his starting side as Manly seek to arrest an alarming trend of lethargic starts.
Sunday’s 20-14 defeat at home to Cronulla means Manly head to Canberra later this week needing to snap a three-game losing streak, and hoping Josh Schuster and Jake Trbojevic are on deck.
Cronulla raced out to a 14-point lead in the space of half an hour and Manly’s lethargy was summed up by rampaging backrower Haumole Olakau’atu being trampled by Royce Hunt for the opening try.
In that treble of defeats, which came against the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sharks, Manly have failed to score a try until the second half.
“We need to look at our starting team, that’s one thing that’s potentially a solution,” said Seibold, identifying other areas as “our tactics and what we do to start our games”.
“But it hasn’t been a season trend … we’ve had 10 games now and had some really fast and aggressive starts.
“The last three weeks we clearly haven’t started the game well and it’s taken us to reset at halftime to come out and play the footy we want to play.
“It’s a work in progress, it’s a tough competition, and we’re not going to kick stones.
“We’ve got a team that can fight hard but we’ve got to be better in and around little things.”
Seibold will hope lock Trbojevic (calf) and Schuster (quad) are at his disposal against the resurgent Raiders.
“They’ll need Monday or Tuesday to be ticked off but we think (they’ll be available),” Seibold said.
Manly will certainly be without Josh Aloiai, who sustained a dislocated shoulder against the Sharks, and backrower Kelma Tuilagi, who played most of the second half with a fractured cheekbone.
“(Aloiai) might need a couple of weeks to strengthen that up,” Seibold.
“I think that generally happens. He may need an operation but until I speak to the medical staff and see how bad it is we won’t know.
“Kelma bravely fought on. He looks as though he’s going to need surgery and a plate.”