Wayne Bennett was not happy with a Manly try. He won’t want to hear Ben Trbojevic’s thoughts

Ben Trbojevic knows Manly were lucky to get away with a try during a crucial stage of Thursday night’s clash against South Sydney.

The Sea Eagles triumphed 28-14 over South Sydney to cap a memorable week for the club and coach Kieran Foran, who signed on as head coach until the end of 2029.

There was a lot of love in the air for Foran, with the local KFC even ditching Colonel Sanders for a giant image of ‘Foz’ for the night. The Sea Eagles with Foran at the helm deserve to dream big, and are a serious hope of a top-four finish.

But they did get lucky when Trbojevic appeared to knock the ball on as he played it before fullback Clayton Faulolo scored in the 50th minute.

Replays showed Trbojevic place the ball on the ground, only for the ball to grip to his hand before it bobbled on to the 4 Pines Park turf.

Even referee Adam Gee told Souths players the “sticky spray” on Trbojevic’s hands was to blame, and how “he never loses control of it, he plants it down, and it comes up”.

Trbojevic’s hands were still sticky after the game, and this masthead had to delay our interview so we could retrieve the tape recorder from one of his palms.

“I don’t know what the actual rule is, but I went to play it, the ball stuck to my hand, then it fell off,” Trbojevic said.

“Once we scored, I knew it was a try because they [the bunker] couldn’t go back and rule on it.

“I was a bit worried. I think I went to Jake [Trbojevic] when we scored and asked what the ruling was because it bobbled.

“It literally stuck to my hand. I don’t know what happened. But we got away with it.”

Souths coach Wayne Bennett wanted to know why referee Adam Gee never picked up the incident, nor the bunker. Under the rules, however, the bunker could only rule on any passage of play leading up to a try after the play the ball – not the play the ball itself.

“He didn’t play it properly, did he?” Bennett said.

“It’s as simple as that. We pay all this money for the bunker, and we still don’t get it right.

“We weren’t playing well, so I won’t use it as an excuse.

“If that’s an acceptable play the ball, the game is going to change enormously very quickly.

“The game will have an excuse for it. You just have to live with it.”

Bennett said there was a similar drop a few weeks ago when Rob Toia was awarded a try for the Roosters against the Gold Coast, even though the Titans were told they had been dudded by officials straight after the game.

While Foran and Manly are tracking north, and will welcome the return of Tom Trbojevic from a hamstring injury after the bye, Souths are in reverse.

“We’re nowhere near where we should be,” Bennett said.

“We’re well into the season, and we should be playing good football. We’re not going forward at the moment – our performances are going backwards.

“The key mistakes are coming from the guys with 150 NRL games. I can cop it from the younger guys, but the older guys are better than that, and they need to take ownership of what their jobs are out there. They get well paid to do it.”

Foran won a premiership as a player in 2011, and has the locals believing history could repeat as early as this year.

As Jake Trbojevic said: “We’re very excited and happy with the way everything is going.

“‘Foz’ will be our coach the next three years – hopefully forever. He’s a great man, a great leader and everyone is getting behind him.

“On the way here, everywhere I drove it was ‘Fozball’, ‘Foz Pines Park’, ‘Kieran Foran Chicken’. I thought, ‘we better play good’, and thank God we did.”

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