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After seven rounds the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles sit all alone at the bottom of the ladder, and it makes one thing very clear – the club is facing the beginning of the end.
It has been a wonderful era for Manly, with two premierships from four grand final appearances.
Never before in nearly seven decades of existence has the club (or its ill-fated entity the Northern Eagles) won the wooden spoon and not since 2004 – the year Des Hasler first coached the club – have they failed to make the finals.
But Friday night’s 28-16 loss to the Bulldogs saw the club crash to its fifth straight loss and sixth from seven starts this season. Their only two points came courtesy of a narrow victory over the ladder-leading Melbourne Storm – their opponents this Saturday night – in Round 2.
Clearly, the departures of Anthony Watmough and Glenn Stewart hasn’t helped the Sea Eagles’ plight this season. In fact, this Wednesday marks exactly a year since it was announced that the latter would be moving to South Sydney after failing to gain a new contract at Brookvale Oval.
The announcement that Daly Cherry-Evans would move to the Gold Coast Titans at the end of the season has not helped either, and his immediate future has also cast a cloud over the club’s season and it threatens to reach boiling point.
His looming departure, as well as that of Kieran Foran for Parramatta, also at season’s end, continues the dismantling of a club which prided itself on being successful over the last decade through two premierships, another two grand finals and ten consecutive appearances in September.
When you also consider the fact that club stalwarts Jamie Lyon, Matt Ballin and Brett Stewart are all on the wrong side of 30, and are creeping dangerously close to retirement, the foundations appear to have been laid for a rebuild of the club.
That being said, the Sea Eagles face arguably their biggest challenge on and off the field since the Manly-Warringah brand returned in 2003 following the ill-fated Northern Eagles merger.
One of the main reasons the once almighty club is being ripped apart is due to the pressures of the salary cap, which is designed to ensure equality across all 16 clubs in the competition.
Its biggest casualty over the last decade was the Melbourne Storm, who were stripped of three minor premierships and two premierships between 2006 and 2009 for gross salary cap breaches during their era of tainted success.
The biggest victim out of all this was Greg Inglis, who had been a part of the Storm’s ‘Fab Four’ which also consisted of Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith. He then moved to the South Sydney Rabbitohs and was part of their premiership side last year.
And since winning the premiership in 2010, the St George Illawarra Dragons have also been ripped apart by the salary cap, with only Jason Nightingale, Ben Creagh and Trent Merrin remaining from the side that were victorious that season.
Salary cap pressures aside, Sea Eagles coach Geoff Toovey is under increasing pressure to keep his job, and given the Sea Eagles face the Storm in Melbourne this weekend as part of a huge Anzac Day, the board’s patience may be further tested if the club loses their sixth straight match.
Toovey led the club to three consecutive top-four finishes in as many years since taking over from Des Hasler at the end of 2011, but a straight-sets exit from last year’s finals series could have signalled what many of their fans are fearing – the beginning of the end for the NRL powerhouse.
If you also include their final round loss to the Cowboys from last season, which cost them the minor premiership, they have now lost nine of their last ten matches.
It is the worst slump the Sea Eagles have suffered since Des Hasler was appointed in 2004 to lead their on-field rebuild.
While Toovey has done his best to keep the club’s premiership window open after Hasler’s departure for the Bulldogs, as evidenced when they reached the grand final in 2013, an ageing squad, the pressures of the salary cap and the departure of key players is clearly starting to catch up to the club.
If Manly were to finish with the wooden spoon for the first time in their long and illustrious history it would be the culmination of the biggest fall from grace for any club in recent NRL history,a excluding the Bulldogs and Storm who were condemned to the wooden spoon in 2002 and 2010 respectively for salary cap breaches.
Outside of those, the most recent notable previous fall from grace came when the New Zealand Warriors, surprise grand finalists in 2011, crashed to third-last twelve months later.
The Gold Coast Titans also crashed from preliminary finalists in 2010 to wooden spooners in 2011 and it’s fair to say that the club has not recovered since, having not made the finals for four consecutive seasons.
Inevitably, the Sea Eagles’ golden era of success will have to come to an end, and unless there is a mid-season miracle of sorts there are bound to be some dark times ahead for a club which has never finished last in its proud history.
But in the meantime, let’s hope that the Sea Eagles can turn things around for the better before it starts getting worse in the coming weeks.
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