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The Penns may well be mightier than the sword they brought down on Geoff Toovey’s head yesterday, but the knee-jerk reaction from the club’s faithful could be even more telling for the 68-year-old Manly-Warringah club.
Rarely have I known a bigger backlash from a rugby league fan-base. Along the northern beaches and way, way wider, the reaction was raw, honest and seething with vitriol.
And it is more than likely to carry a vicious sting in a tail looking to lash out at Manly’s owners, and their new administration.
Toovey was a much-loved and admired Sea Eagle player who graduated into a top-line coach.
Street corner tips have been telling us for months now that Toovey was on the outer with the new regime and that an untried and untested rookie, Trent Barrett, would be his successor.
It happened on Tuesday, when Toovey was officially told he would be finishing up as coach this year, with the final season on his contract to be paid out in full.
Coaches come and go in the dog-eat-dog NRL, but this axing was different. The fans – the heartbeat of any football club – felt that an iconic Manly man had been severely wronged and they formed an immediate chorus of disenchantment. And it’s going to get very loud.
Even board members at Manly Football Club – a different entity to the NRL club board, but still 14 per cent owners of the club – including Cliffy Lyons, Darrell Williams and Mal Cochrane are filthy over what happened.
Sea Eagle fans have been highly active on talkback radio and, of course, on social media. Many felt Toovey had been humiliated and deserved a lot better. Some even vowed that this was the last straw.
Rob, from Blacktown, on the Sydney Morning Herald website:
“I needed almost an excuse to stop turning up to home games, considering I drive there from the Golden West. And this is it. Screw the Board. Screw the Penn family and screw Bozo. I’m done with this club. Barrett won’t be able to coach his way out of a wet paper bag.”
I share his sentiments for a number of reasons.
Geoff Toovey was punted for political reasons and not for lack of coaching ability.
He alienated himself with his new employers early on and refused to play their game. Of course that can only end one way and it eventually did.
But politics aside, the Eagles’ money men have installed a coach who has zero track-record in the NRL and he has been an assistant coach to a chronically losing NSW team for the last few years.
Oust a man who has made one grand final, one preliminary final and one semi-final in three-and-a-half seasons for an untried coach? That’s very bad business. Ridiculous, as Toovey might well say.
PB, Brisbane, wrote: “Trent Barrett, blimey. What do they do if his coaching percentage is lower than Tooves? Maybe he can teach the team Italian.”
Here on The Roar, veteran Sea Eagle fan Lou Tesoriero wrote:
“I am 70 years old and have been a Manly supporter since my apprenticeship with Billy Bradstreet. I played with Manly. I think it’s wrong that Toovey is being blamed for the stuff-ups of management of the Manly team and I will no longer be following them. What a disgrace.”
I am right with you, Lou! Toovey was clearly the man for the job but chapter after chapter of gross mismanagement behind the scenes made his coaching job pretty much unbearable.
He soldiered on as daily crap surrounding Anthony Watmough, Kieran Foran and Daly Cherry-Evans poisoned the Brookvale air, and he did so despite a crippling injury toll that would have brought any NRL club to its knees.
But the Sea Eagles – handsome upset winners over hot favourites the New Zealand Warriors last weekend – are merely two wins adrift of eighth place and might yet snare an unlikely finals berth.
I am not a Manly fan but I have always applauded guts and character. This club has it in truckloads and it is men like Toovey who ensure it is the very essence of the club’s culture.
Not sure if Trent Barrett can maintain that sort of maroon-and-white rage.
Speaking of rage, here’s club stalwart and Eagles Angel Wendy Harmer, on Twitter.
And thanks for asking, but unavailable to make comment about Toovey sacking for fear of defamation lawsuit.
#thankstooves
— Wendy Harmer (@wendy_harmer) July 28, 2015
I suppose one should wish the in-coming Barrett the best of luck as he takes over what is looking increasingly like a basket-base. Manly: the new Parramatta.
Sure, there will be a few new players on deck next year (Nate Myles, Darcy Lussick, Lewis Brown and Api Koroisau so far), but it will take one heck of a head coach to blend them all together and form the Sea Eagles into a serious finals contender.
If the Penn men, Rick and Scott – along with their big gun, ‘strategic consultant’ and club revitaliser Bob Fulton – don’t see their team in the final eight, I guess it will be ‘a year of consolidation. Time to give T Barrett a decent go’.
There could be hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Sea Eagle diehards missing from the stands and outer ground in season 2016 and beyond. It won’t be the type of Manly that Manly folk want.
I will finish with a comment from Jay Callaghan from the Central Coast: “23 years of age. 23 years supporting Manly. Today is the day I cancel my membership. Screw you Penn family. I will continue to support Manly but you will never get another cent from me.”
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