Coach Ivan Cleary says he was proud of his Wests Tigers despite going down to Manly at Brookvale on Sunday 28-16.

The struggling Wests Tigers were a chance of stealing the two competition points on a glorious day in Sydney but Cleary admitted that weight of possession won out in the end.

“I’m actually really proud of the boys today,” Cleary said.

“I think Manly had 14 more completed sets than us which is an unbelievable amount.

“They did well to do that but we still hung and we were still competing right at the end.

“We could have even won the game in the last 10 minutes.

“But we’ve got to be able to control the ball and the way the sets finish a bit better.

“We were certainly looking pretty good after we scored in the second half.

“There were just a couple of errors in our own end and the way we finished off our sets wasn’t good enough and the Sea Eagles had all the ball and did a great job of building pressure.

“We were still able to be in the contest at 20-16 and had an opportunity to get the cash but we couldn’t come up with the right play. The ball just wasn’t bouncing our way.”

Cleary also confirmed that rookie hooker Jacob Liddle had dislocated his shoulder.