**Manly watch exit from lounge rooms**
Will Swanton | September 14, 2009
http://www.smh.com.au/news/lhqnews/manly-watch-exit/2009/09/13/1252780223365.html
THE premiers are out, learning their fate on the idiot box.
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Text messages and phone calls flew thick and fast between shocked Manly players yesterday from the moment Eels winger Luke Burt nailed his field goal to sink the Dragons and eject the Sea Eagles from the play-offs.
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''I'm shattered,'' Manly coach Des Hasler told Sportal. ''Shattered that we won't get another chance and we're not going to be there this year.
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''I didn't really expect us to be in this position. I thought maybe the Gold Coast-Brisbane game could go either way and one or two other results would help us out. It's been a really difficult year, an up-and-down year for us, and there were some extenuating circumstances which contributed to our loss on Friday night, but it's all over now.''
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Asked if he was a fan of the McIntyre top eight system, Hasler replied: ''I don't really understand it - all I know is we are out. Good luck to the teams still left in it.''
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Hasler watched the Dragons-Eels match alone at home on television, a ''painful experience.'' There was no formal gathering of Sea Eagles players, most of them expecting a Dragons victory that would have kept the premiers, and world champions, in the hunt to defend their title.
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Rather than limping off a field battered, bruised and beaten, they had the surreal and anti-climactic experience of seeing their season end on television. Hasler admitted one of his first thoughts was: what, no training this week?
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Manly's 40-12 loss to the Storm on Friday night goes down as their final act of a largely forgettable season in their attempt to claim back-to-back titles. There was drama before a ball was kicked involving Brett Stewart and Anthony Watmough, they suffered a string of early losses, but charged home to finish fifth.
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They seemed to be on the verge of a genuine premiership tilt but capitulated against the white-hot Storm. Test back-rower Watmough feared last week that a loss would end the Sea Eagles' season regardless of their middish-table finish and to his horror he was proved right when the sixth-placed Broncos and eighth-placed Eels got the jump on the Titans and Dragons respectively.
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The Sea Eagles were going to do it tough from here anyway. Brett Stewart came out of the Melbourne clash with a back injury, Watmough had a bad knee, Jamie Lyon was gone for the season with his busted shoulder, Ben Farrar and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves are both on report.
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''You look at eight, seven, six, they've stitched up some really good teams all year,'' Watmough said before the Storm match.
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''If we don't win, we could pretty much say goodbye to our season. We don't want to be relying on other teams, we want destiny in our own hands. In past years you could probably think you're safe finishing fifth, but not this year. Things won't fall your way this year.''
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Watmough will reappear for Australia in the Four Nations tournament, but captain Matt Orford is going to have to sit on his final performance all through the off-season.
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Carrying a mystery injury, the Sea Eagles' general was quiet against the Storm. If you're only as good as your last game, Orford, who'd carved up the Titans and Tigers before the play-offs, has a painfully long wait before he receives the chance to make amends.
