Analysis: How The Dolphins' bye caused shock Sea Eagles loss

Samoa head coach Ben Gardiner believes The Dolphins allowed their upcoming bye to make them complacent in their shock loss to the Sea Eagles.

The Dolphins were ambushed at home by the under-pressure Sea Eagles, finishing on the wrong end of a 52-18 scoreline.

Manly’s forward pack, in their first game since Anthony Seibold’s removal, dominated that of the Dolphins, with second rower Haumole Olakau’atu alone racking up 272 metres, two try assists, eight tackle breaks and a try.

The Dolphins now head into their Round 6 bye sitting in 13th position with only two wins from their first five matches.

With their bye on the forefront, and their match on the Thursday before the Easter weekend, Gardiner believes the side allowed the thought of the bye infiltrate their preparation.

“I saw a few things that were of concern,” Gardiner told SEN 1170.

“The first thing was that (Kodi) Nikorima didn't want to defend on the weekend. He put himself under a huge amount of pressure.

“Obviously he has Olakau’atu running at him… if you know Olakau’atu’s running at you, it's got to be a night of commitment.

“You’ve got to be committed and worry about your defence first because you know that he's going to be coming at you.

“But he wasn't the only one, there were a lot of bad misses through the middle and I just wonder, psychologically, whether they'd looked at Manly and gone… ‘because the coach has changed… we don't really need to be on it’.

“I put it down to the middles. The middles weren't strong, they didn't defend strongly, they weren't aggressive, and they've got some really aggressive players up there.

“They just allowed them to run over the top of them through the middle, which put huge pressure on the edges and Olakau’atu has a field day.

“The thing for me though, which I found really interesting, and I heard it in the call was that the Dolphins have the bye next week and that's a psychological challenge for any team.

“They're talking about having a few days off, they might have four days off training and before they leave their wife or their partner says to them, ‘I've got the bags packed and when you come home, we'll get ready to go and get on the plane’, so they're actually going on holiday.

“You think about it for a normal work person. The last three or four days before they go on holiday, they've packed their books away and they're just sitting waiting to go.

“You think about the chaos of it. You know that when a new coach comes in, like consistently they go really well that week, but then subconsciously for The Dolphins, they're not really looking at that because they're going… ‘we need to make sure that we're ready to go on the weekend.’

“Complacency just happens to seep in.”

The Dolphins head to Darwin in Round 7 to take on the undefeated Panthers.