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In one of the season’s gutsiest displays, the Sea Eagles are somehow flying high despite the adversity of being likeable.
But if they achieve success without being unbearably loathsome, have they really succeeded?
Tolerance, let alone approval, is a sentiment highly unaccustomed to the caustically-spurned Manly brand.
However, a Sea Eagles team that excels in an appallingly palatable manner is one many are unable to respect.
Along with the Roosters, Broncos, Bulldogs, Souths and the 2017 New South Wales Blues, Manly stand alone as the most hated team in rugby league history.
So historically repugnant, they have bickered with the highest corridors of the game, various state governments and even themselves.
Such is their catalogue of spectacular condemnations from those including David Gallop and their own board, it lead to the coining of their famous slogan ‘Nobody likes us and we don’t care’.
Like measly travelling support and shunning the working class, this catchcry sums everything up about Manly.
(AAP Image/Lukas Coch)
Not only is it a rare viewpoint agreed by both club and the rest of society, it has proven a magnet for other fellow undesirables like criminal underworld figures and Tony Abbott.
While we normal people initially believed the motto to be a hollow exercise in brand building, the Sea Eagles responded by unapologetically wiping out the Bears.
However, while this year’s team still carries the hallmarks of a regulation Sea Eagles side – colours, logo, dangerously dilapidated stadium – they are represented by a new-look side that acts nothing like Manly.
Look at their set-up: likeable, inoffensive, and capped off with an entertaining style of play. It is totally gross.
Seriously, where’s the beef?
Until I see Tommy Turbo threatening homicide on a referee while Jake steals lobster, the Trbejovics will never be a patch on the Fultons.
Marty Taupau may have a chequered record of coat-hangers, but until he does something heinous like actively protect Russell Crowe, he’s no Spud Carroll to me.
Daly Cherry-Evans may have annoyed a heap of Queenslanders, but Terry Hill achieved the same, only with a million more Lowes ads.
Plus nobody has felt the need to walk on Api Koroisau’s lips, or extract Akuila Uate from anywhere tight and smelly except Newcastle.
In addition, Trent Barrett looks like cologne, Blake Green is the kind of guy who’d cheerily help you hide a body, and Dylan Walker is an intelligent young man with the wherewithal to get out of Souths.
(AAP Image/Paul Miller)
The team has become so incredibly hard to hate, swift and serious action is required. Maybe another drugs scandal or something, or perhaps a season launch with an open bar is required.
This crisis of identity has been recognised by club administrators, who in a valiant attempt to restore order have associated the club with a salary cap scandal.
However, this backfired when they offered to throw open their books to show there’s nothing off-the-books.
Are Manly’s charismatically bankrupt days now in the past? We can’t expect Bozo Fulton to carry the can all on his own.
Manly are climbing as a serious premiership chance. But if they were to reach the summit, it would be tainted with unfortunate goodwill and approval.
Knowing them, I’m sure they would give it all up just to evoke the utter disgust of previous incarnations.