[Catalyst] failing tests

[apv]

I have quite a few helper-installed tests that are failing requests 
which seem okay. They respond correctly via web requests or even curl 
and such.

This is an example of what's failing:

ok( request('admin/manual')->is_success );

but this succeeds (leading slash):

ok( request('/admin/manual')->is_success );

The sole sub in this case is:

sub default : Path {
     my ( $self, $c, $page, $no_args ) = @_;
     die "RC_404" if $no_args;
     $page ||= 'index';
     $c->stash(template => "manual/$page");
}

Is it the test behavior that's broken or my expectation + 
implementation?

Thanks!
-Ashley