The Brisbane Broncos have delivered an impressive performance on night one of Magic Round, with Selwyn Cobbo starring as his team smashed Manly 32-6 at a sold-out Lang Park to extend their lead at the top of the NRL ladder.
Earlier the Canberra Raiders kicked things off, edging an 11-try thriller against the Bulldogs.
With an unusual amount of away fans at the ground, Kevin Walters' side didn't have the normal overwhelming support in the stands, but it didn't matter as the Broncos scored six tries to one.
In a clash of first vs sixth, the Sea Eagles made things difficult for themselves with a string of handling errors, as they struggled to build momentum.
The combination of fullback Reece Walsh and winger Cobbo were devastating in the first half, as Cobbo scored a double to help Brisbane take a 20-0 lead at the main break.
Cobbo opened the scoring in the ninth minute when he ran onto a Walsh grubber to score wide on the right.
The Broncos were in again five minutes later, when hooker Billy Walters took a pass and went over to the left of the posts after a strong attack took the home side within five of the tryline.
The glut of possession for Brisbane kept coming along with mistakes from the Sea Eagles.
A surge by Kurt Capewell nearly led to a third try on the left, but the Broncos were undeterred and a switch of play saw Adam Reynolds feed Walsh, who sent the ball to Cobbo who darted over in the opposite corner to make it 16-0 after 24 minutes.
Winger Jesse Arthars added a fourth try before half-time, and the Sea Eagles looked nowhere at the break.
Manly came out with greater intensity in the second half, and they put pressure on the Broncos, but they could not convert that pressure into points.
A lackadaisical effort from Cobbo in watching a Manly kick run in-goal and stop, saw him hammered by Daly Cherry-Evans, forcing a dropout.
But the Broncos had the answers again, forcing a turnover on the Manly right to defuse the situation.
Manly improved their completion rate in the second half, but when they were threatening the Brisbane line with 12 minutes left, another spill of the ball by Josh Aloiai killed off the slim chances of a comeback.
Two minutes later, the home side made Manly pay, as Cobbo got his hand to a Tom Trbojevic pass and tipped it in the air before regathering and sprinting clear down the line to score his third and Brisbane's fifth of the night.
Herbie Farnsworth went over for another with seven minutes left, but Manly got on the board with a late score to Ben Trbojevic.
Raiders hold on through chaotic finish to beat Dogs in opening match
For the second straight year, the Bulldogs kicked off Magic Round with a loss, with Canberra winning the first match of the footy festival in Brisbane 34-30.
It took five minutes for the Dogs to even touch the ball at Lang Park after the Raiders scored to end their first set in the opening minute, when Declan Casey refused to contest a high ball, and Jordan Rapana gleefully accepted the gift.
It kicked off a seven-try first half, with the Raiders jumping out to a 22-6 lead before Jacob Preston's second and Jake Averillo's first ate into that advantage to make it 22-18 at half-time.
Rapana reopened the scoring on a right-side shift just after the break, before the scoring dried up for the first time on the night.
The next try came 15 minutes later when Jarrod Croker swooped on a loose ball to cross, before the Dogs once again struck back.
In the 63rd minute, Matt Burton uncorked a trademark spiralling bomb that landed squarely in no-man's land, taking a right-angled bounce straight into the arms of winger Jacob Kiraz, who found Averillo back through the middle with a classy offload.
The Raiders should have extended their 10-point lead when a Bulldogs pass hit Jack Wighton in the head and Xavier Savage scooped up the ricochet and went 40 metres to score, but the referee incorrectly ruled it a knock-on by Wighton.
From the ensuing scrum, Burton broke through and got to within two metres of the tryline before flicking a pass towards Hayze Perham, but the fullback never got the chance to catch the ball, flattened first by Canberra sub Ata Mariota.
With Perham taken a metre before the line, the bunker had no choice but to award a penalty try, tightening the gap to four points with two-and-a-half minutes left.
A penalty in the final seconds gave Canterbury one more chance, but Rapana, filling in at fullback after Sebastian Kris was subbed off for an HIA, did remarkably well to take Burton's final spiralling effort cleanly to end the match.
