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Is it a cold day in hell? I pity Geoff Toovey

Sea Eagles head coach Geoff Toovey will be replaced by Trent Barrett in 2016. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Roar Guru
29th July, 2015
14

I feel sorry for Geoff Toovey. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

Like most rugby league fans I’ve had a long and intense hatred of Manly.

It’s in your DNA if you weren’t born on the northern beaches or have never camped on the hill at ‘Fortress Brookvale’ in your maroon and white.

It’s a throwback to the 1970s when Manly not only dominated the NSWRL competition with premiership success, but also a time when they could buy just about any player they wanted because they had the biggest chequebook in the game and were astutely administered by the highly regarded Ken Arthurson.

In simple terms, Manly were hated because they were too good.

When a nippy little halfback with blonde locks emerged on the scene in a mid-week tour match against Great Britain in 1988 it looked as though the local parish had lost a choirboy.

It didn’t take long before Geoff Toovey shot up the list of the ‘most hated’ list with rival supporters because he also was too good.

If you think modern day players Michael Ennis, Paul Gallen and James Graham are annoying because of their constant niggle and antagonistic antics towards referees, I suggest you find an old VHS tape of Geoff Toovey at his best. It’s no contest.

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Fast forward a few years and with the strict enforcement of the salary cap, the failed merger of the Northern Eagles, the impact of poker machine taxes and smoking bans coming into place, and Manly were on the bones of their backside financially.

In 2004 the tax office was circling and the Sea Eagles were about to be put into insolvency – until a supporter used his superannuation to dig the club out of a hole.

Enter Des Hasler, who methodically rebuilt Manly and led them to a couple of grand final victories, while also successfully fuelling the siege mentality the Sea Eagles are famous for. However, in the salary cap era premierships always come at a price. In Manly’s case, it was several back-ended deals Hasler had done with the team’s stars in order to keep the playing group together long-term.

As is Hasler’s way, he had taken complete control of the club – much to management’s chagrin. This was all dumped in Toovey’s lap after Hasler exited to Canterbury following the club’s 2011 premiership season.

Officials only have themselves to blame. They could have put a stop to back-ended deals but didn’t and ultimately it blew up in Toovey’s face when he opted not re-sign club favourite Glen Stewart because of financial pressure. This, in turn, fractured the playing group, contributing to the departures of Anthony Watmough and Kieran Foran, and creating the Daly Cherry-Evans circus.

Toovey has done remarkably well given the circumstances of Hasler’s departure, the constant squabbles at boardroom level (which leaks like a sieve), and several changes in the ownership and management structure of the club.

With all this going on he’s managed to reach a grand final, preliminary final and semi-final in his three-and-a-half years at the helm, and quite frankly deserves better from a club that has been his life for the past 27 years.

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Manly demand success, but it’s a tough school when you get sacked with a 57 per cent win rate as a coach.

Toovey will see the remainder of the 2015 season as a challenge and anyone prepared to write the Sea Eagles off as finals contenders just yet do so at their peril.

As much as I hate to say it.

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