The beachside suburb the Sea Eagles call home received its European name after the impression the local Indigenous people left on Captain Arthur Phillip.
According to the local area website, “Phillip was impressed by the ‘confidence and manly behaviour’ of a group of Aboriginal people in the northern reaches of the harbour. As such they called the place ‘Manly Cove’.”
But tell you what, those blokes running around in maroon and white are not acting very manly at the moment. They’re behaving like boys.
Let’s have a look at some of their recent off-field form.
First, Jackson Hastings dropped out of the Sea Eagles’ 17 to face Wests Tigers in Round 6, as he had reportedly injured his ankle.
Then it comes out that, actually, Hastings got the chop because he and club captain Daly Cherry-Evans had a “lovers’ tiff” (DCE’s words) at a training session in Gladstone, where the club played the Gold Coast the previous week.
Then the story emerges that the pair had resumed hostilities at the team hotel following Manly’s loss to the Titans.
Next, it breaks that the players have told coach Trent Barrett they won’t take the field with Hastings again, and the young half is banished to feeder club Blacktown, seemingly for the rest of the season.
To be fair, Barrett has been emphatic that there was no such demand from his playing group, and that the decision to drop Hastings was solely a coach’s call.
Of course, revelations that Cherry-Evans’ second scuffle with the youngster came about after the skipper and other, unnamed players broke curfew to attend a strip club led to more awkward questions about Hastings’ treatment.
(AAP Image/Brendan Esposito)
Add it all up and whether Barrett says he’s in charge or not, you’ve got the picture of a club where it appears the players are running the show.
And the players are acting like children – definitely not manly.
But even worse than not behaving manly, the Sea Eagles are acting in a way that’s decidedly not Manly.
There’s a famous sign that’s hoisted at Brookvale – so well-known, it’s featured in NRL advertising campaigns – which reads, “Guess what? Manly hates you too!”
I love it. In six simple words, it sums up everything the joint is about.
They know the rest of the comp hates them. Think they care? Ha!
While just about every other club in the competition loves to bung on about their blue-collar roots – I love the Knights, but if you believe the ‘working-class town full of working-class people’ propaganda peddled by Newcastle, then you haven’t been to Merewether lately – Manly own the fact that their fans are mostly white collar.
What other club has such nonchalant audacity?
So much as mention the words ‘latte sipper’ to a Roosters supporter and he’ll be weeping into his small skinny cappuccino (“hold the chocolate dusting, and easy on the foam – quickly now”) before checking where his team is on the ladder and deciding whether to defend them or not.
But call a Manly supporter a Silvertail? He’ll likely just remind you that while the Western Suburbs ‘Fibros’ were everyone’s second-favourite team in 1978 – the year Roy Masters ignited the Fibros versus Silvertails legend – the Sea Eagles won that year’s comp.
Basically, the insult is: “My house sucks and your team won the grand final.”
Ouch.
Growing up, I hated Manly. You better believe I did. But it had nothing to do with the fact the houses on the Northern Beaches are nice (I was content with my lot living in the working-class suburb of Merewether, because we Novocastrian sons of blue-collar GPs are just humble like that).
I hated them because they consistently beat the Knights. Sure, we had that “one perfect day” in September 1997, but otherwise the Sea Eagles towelled Newcastle up on a pretty consistent basis.
On Friday, the Knights went down to Brookvale and beat Manly for the second time this season. And while I loved seeing my boys getting one over on our old enemy, it wasn’t a foaming-at-the-mouth, text-anyone-who-lives-north-of-the-Spit-to-gloat kind of victory.
Because these Sea Eagles just aren’t Manly.
The real Manly would have absolutely thrashed the Knights, in a statement of real intent:
“Yes, we’ve had a rubbish fortnight. Yes, we’ve been in the papers for all the wrong reasons. Yes, our backs are against the wall.
“That’s the way we like it!”
Instead, they couldn’t beat the three-time wooden spooners, who were without their marquee player and halfback (although, tell you what, Kalyn Ponga isn’t a bad option as a backup chief playmaker).
As for where the problem lies, there are a few theories.
Some put it down to Trent Barrett being the coach, because he never played for the club (for the record though, while Baz isn’t a Sea Eagle, he’s not really a Dragon either – he’s a Steeler).
(Photo by Jason O’Brien/Getty Images)
Others are suggesting it’s a lack of leadership from the front office, with Andrew Webster this week calling out both co-owner Scott Penn and chief executive Lyall Gorman as “gutless”.
Then there are those pointing the finger at the captain.
No, it’s not terribly original to blame DCE, who’s been the scapegoat at Manly since two brothers – a hard-as-nails backrower with skills to rival any five-eighth and his younger sibling, an electric fullback – surnamed Stewart instead of Trbojevic were lighting up Brookvale.
But this is a bloke who got in a scrap with a junior player, then went out to a strip club with a bunch of teammates after being explicitly told to call it a night, before eventually going back to the team hotel for round two with the aforementioned youngster.
This is your club’s on-field leader?
As for his punishment, DCE copped a $10,000 fine, which sounds like a lot of money until you remember he’s on a reported $1.25 million a year, so ten grand is actually less than half of what he grosses in a week.
Your most senior player behaves like a total child and his punishment is to be fined an amount that he won’t even notice? What the hell kind of line in the sand is that?
Whichever ‘c’ you want to blame – the captain, the coach, the CEO or the co-owner – the worst part is that, at the moment, I don’t hate Manly. I just feel sorry for them.
And really, there is no greater insult to a club so proud of being despised.
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