After starting 2025 with plenty of promise, the Sea Eagles' season is delicately-poised after two tries from Tyrell Sloan helped the Dragons claim victory in front of 17,254 at Brookvale Oval on Thursday.
It is Manly's third-consecutive loss without Trbojevic, who remains sidelined with a knee injury, and comes after a testing period of three games in 11 days.
The Sea Eagles' only win in the weeks since Daly Cherry-Evans' announced he would leave the northern beaches at season's end has been against wooden spoon favourites Parramatta.
And Manly are braced for more injuries with fears over the fitness of forward Nathan Brown and outside back Tommy Talau coming out of Thursday's loss.
The victory was a major step forward for Shane Flanagan's Dragons, who have blown two 12-point leads against South Sydney and Parramatta already this season.
The Dragons led 14-0 before surviving a late Manly fightback to claim a second-straight win.
"The effort, the scramble, the attitude was there," Flanagan said.
"We made some silly errors and if we want to go to that next level we need to get them out of our game.
"That's what I need to keep driving into our group about stopping putting ourselves under pressure."
Manly's ill-discipline, which included a second-half Toff Sipley sin-binning for a hip-drop tackle on Mat Feagai, helped the Dragons over the line.
Flanagan fears the winger's injury is long term, with Feagai leaving the ground on crutches.
It also helped the Dragons that the the Sea Eagles dished up what was arguably their worst opening 40 minutes of football this season.
Anthony Seibold's side made nine first-half errors and completing at a pitiful 62 per cent and lost lock Jake Trbojevic after just eight minutes.
"We were really poor in the first half," said Seibold.
"I'm really proud of the group, I've got to say we finished with nobody fit on the bench and with our third game in 11 days we stayed at it until the end but it wasn't enough tonight."
The Dragons got over the line through winger Sloan, whose 18th-minute try was converted by Valentine Holmes.
The Queensland State of Origin centre kicked a penalty to put the Dragons 8-0 up heading into halftime.
Sloan added his second with a 90m breakaway try off a 46th-minute Ben Trbojevic error with Holmes adding the extras.
Trailing 14-0 with a little over half an hour left, Manly finally clicked gear with a Reuben Garrick penalty and tries from Tolu Koula and Ben Trbojevic pulling the home side level.
Holmes then converted a barge-over from Jacob Liddle but Garrick sliced his conversion attempt after a Jason Saab try, meaning Manly trailed by two points with 10 minutes left.
The Sea Eagles kept searching for a late winner but came up empty handed.
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