KEY POINTS:
Honorary New Zealander Steve Price will have to wait until next season to notch 300 NRL games.
Manly legend Steve Menzies, on the other hand, will get to equal Terry Lamb's record of 349 first-grade appearances in his final game for the club he has represented since 1993, including its brief incarnation as the Northern Eagles. In typical fashion he crossed the line, his 179th four-pointer. Only Ken Irvine (212) has more.
While Menzies will get an appropriate send-off, Price can now hope only that the Warriors can send him out in the same fashion next season. The indomitable Warriors skipper notched 299 premier games last night and was hoping to mark his 300th on the biggest stage of all - next week's grand final where the Storm now await Manly.
Last night's loss could not be pinned on Price, who was prominent in a well-beaten side. You know the Warriors are struggling when the best New Zealander on the park, by the length of the straight, was Steve Matai and he was playing for Manly.
While the little men, Ian Henderson, Michael Witt and Nathan Fien, were all dreadfully disappointing in comparison to their Manly counterparts, Price and Wiki lost nothing in comparison to their front-row opponents.
In a match with horribly lop-sided stats - nine linebreaks to one - Price racked up 135m, the most for the Warriors, and three offloads.
The 34-year-old's importance in revitalising a club that had gone stale since their only grand final appearance in 2002 cannot be underestimated. If the departing Ruben Wiki is the club patriarch then Price is the model pro from whom the younger players take their cue when it comes to training and preparation.
While his arrival did not bring an immediate change in fortunes - they missed the playoffs in 2005 and 2006 - the club started to be cast more in his image last season and this year has seen a continuation of that.
It is worth remembering the man who has done more than any other to demonstrate Australians can be humble was in danger of feeding his career to a pokie machine.
In 2000 he stuffed hundreds of dollars into one-armed bandits at the Canterbury Leagues Club. His footy suffered, as did his life.
The 300 club:
349: Terry Lamb (Western Suburbs, Canterbury)
348: Steve Menzies (Manly, Northern Eagles)
336: Brad Fittler (Penrith, Sydney City)
332: Cliff Lyons (North Sydney, Manly)
328: Andrew Ettingshausen (Cronulla)
320: Geoff Gerard (Parramatta, Manly, Penrith)
318: Jason Croker (Canberra)
315: Paul Langmack (Canterbury, Western Suburbs, Sydney City)
312: Ruben Wiki (Canberra, Warriors)
301: Luke Ricketson (Sydney City)
