Manly coach Des Hasler has a simple formula for his club's charge up the NRL ladder - keep winning.

The Sea Eagles mentor was delighted after his team rebounded from an early 14-0 deficit to thump Newcastle 44-20 at Gosford's Bluetongue Stadium on Friday night.

It was Manly's sixth win from their last seven matches, moving them up to fifth on the competition ladder and making their dreadful start to the year a distant memory.

And Hasler said if his team wants to keep climbing into the competition's top four before the finals, the solution is a basic one.

"It'd be everyone's goal at the moment to have a shot at the top four," he said.

"We just have to keep winning, mate. I'm not one to use cliches but that's what it is for us at the moment. We just have to keep winning and the rest of it we can't control.

"This was a good step forward. Now that Origin's finished we can get some players back and ... start to work on some combinations."

Those players coming back for the Sea Eagles include injured fullback Brett Stewart and suspended pair Heath L'Estrange and Steve Matai.

Stewart is expected to return from a knee injury by round 24, while hooker L'Estrange and Kiwi international Matai will be available for selection for next weekend's match against the Wests Tigers after serving their respective bans.

It all means despite their recent good form, Hasler feels the reigning premiers' best is yet to come.

"It's a start. We're not there yet," he said.

"We've still got a long way to go, I think. We've still got improvement.

"We're still six weeks out so we'll just continue to slowly build. There's a lot of good footy sides out there."

Manly skipper Matt Orford was also hopeful the Sea Eagles still had more improvement in them.

"I think we're slowly getting there obviously with a few a players out," Orford said.

"Once we get our full roster back, we can work on combinations and work on that execution part of our game. We're not there yet."

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