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Opinion
Scott Penn set a dangerous precedent in his interview with Danny Weidler.
The Manly owner expressed his belief that his team have a premiership-winning squad. It’s a bold, misguided belief. A dream that, once reality hits, could prove crushing.
The Sea Eagles possess a good side, don’t get me wrong, but outside of Tom and Jake Trbojevic, Daly Cherry-Evans and Hamuole Olakau’atu, can anyone argue that any other Sea Eagle is a top-10 player in their position across the NRL?
In 2023 this will be no different. Key players Andrew Davey, Kieran Foran, Martin Taupau and Dylan Walker depart, further depleting their side, with only Kelma Tuilagi and Nathaniel Roache arriving.
Penn made his claim despite the cattle and evidence available.
Mr Penn all but confirmed in the shocking yet unsurprising interview that Des Hasler is being shown the exit door at a club where he is part of the fabric.
Hasler has played a significant role as either player or coach in the club’s four premierships since the 1980s, coaching the only side during the 2000s that was able to consistently match it with the dominant Melbourne, producing and nurturing the Stewart brothers, Foran, Cherry-Evans and a host of other peninsula stalwarts into the top grade.
Cut Des open and he’ll ooze maroon and white.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
The year prior to his re-arrival at the club in 2018, Manly finished 15th. He led them to a top-eight finish in 2019, and a top-four finish in 2021, a year that saw him oversee arguably the greatest individual season the competition has ever seen.
This year the Sea Eagles were again on track to finish inside the eight and potentially disrupt the finals. Everyone knows what happened next.
The pride jersey scandal reportedly divided the dressing room with seven Polynesian players boycotting the side’s must-win round 20 clash against another side fighting for finals, the Sydney Roosters. An understrength Manly side lost that match and the following five matches in a free fall that saw them float further away from finals football’s comforting shores.
It’s a string of results that appears to be the final nail in the coffin of Des Hasler’s Manly career. One that the coach himself did not create. One that was created by the club’s non-footballing departments, without consultation of the players or the coach, and one that Hasler was made to front up to himself.
Scott Penn did not sit in the press conference during that week, let’s not forget that.
Rugby league is a cruel game, but even this dismissal seems too cruel for it.
Aside from this, as owner it is Penn’s right to dismiss who he pleases, there can be no debate over that. If he feels that he and Hasler’s relationship is untenable and that it may be in the best interests to part ways with a club great then so be it.
Truthfully, if he believes that Manly do have a premiership-winning side and desires the NRL trophy to be returned to a place it called home often during the 2000s and 2010s, and he feels that a two-time premiership-winning coach is unable to deliver such goals, and he is willing to live by this sword and die by this sword, then good on him.
He is testing fate, though, by replacing a proven premiership-winner and a man who delivered top-four football with, crucially, a fully fit and firing Tom Trbojevic, with a man who dragged the country’s biggest club, the Brisbane Broncos, through the wooden spoon mud.
Scott Penn described Hasler’s most likely replacement, Anthony Seibold, as a “phenomenal intellect [and] a great tactician [who’s] shown he’s got credentials as a head coach”.
Not to knock the former Souths coach as a person, but his ‘credentials’ hardly stack up against those of Hasler’s, yet he is seen as the clear and obvious choice in the eyes of the Manly owner to lead a 17 that he vehemently believes can win a competition.
Add to this the six-figure lawsuit looming between the club and Hasler and the next few months on the peninsula has potentially nuclear ramifications that could destroy the owner’s premiership dream, derail Anthony Seibold’s reign before it begins and create a schism between ownership and fans.
2023 could prove to be Manly’s last dance with Des, or it could go the other way, only time and fate will tell.
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