The problem at Manly was not coach Des Hasler – it’s owner and chairman Scott Penn.
What’s gone down at the Sea Eagles in the past few months, and particularly this week, confirms that much. It’s hardly surprising when Penn spends most of his time living in New York, devising ways to hold an NRL match in the US where he can hang with Hugh Jackman.
Why Penn ruthlessly managed Hasler – a club great and two-time premiership coach – towards the exit at Brookvale isn’t entirely clear.
When Channel Nine’s Danny Weidler door-stopped him after a board meeting on Tuesday, Penn looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, bottom lip quivering because he was finally being asked some tough questions on the record.
Asked why Hasler was being moved on, Penn said: “We have a premiership-winning team. What we need is a football department that can get us back there as quickly as possible.”
After Penn brought Hasler back to the club in 2019 – “when no-one else wanted him” – to clean up the mess left by Trent Barrett, Hasler made the semi-finals, finished 13th, reached a preliminary final, and this year finished 11th following the season-ending injury to the game’s best player, Tom Trbojevic, and the Rainbow Jersey controversy caused by the ham-fisted actions of club management, not the coach.
Des Hasler is still the right man for Manly. Is Scott Penn?Credit:Getty
Hasler was sacked on Thursday morning following a board meeting. The decision was never about football but a clash of egos.
On one hand, you had an owner concerned about “optics” – his favourite term – and mitigating financial exposure for his family’s business. On the other, a coach who’s a noted control freak that still has the 50-cent piece he found in the Brookvale Oval tunnel at a halftime when he was a player in the 1980s.
Des is Des, bless him. He can be trickier to deal with than a Burmese Python. With the magic comes the madness. But it’s not like Penn didn’t know what kind of coach he was signing.
If he couldn’t remember Hasler’s first incarnation at Brookvale, surely he observed Hasler’s messy exit from the Bulldogs and established some clear boundaries – in writing – for his second.
Scott Penn embraces Daly Cherry-Evans, who is wearing the rainbow jersey that derailed the team’s season.Credit:Getty Images
Former Bulldogs chief executive Todd Greenberg and chairman Ray Dib still argue about who gave Hasler so much autonomy at Belmore. Hasler argued he had to get his hands on every facet of the Manly operation this time around out of necessity. The club runs on a skeleton staff compared to others and changes chief executives like they’re oil filters.
Many within Manly believe what truly aggrieved Penn was the way Hasler handled himself in the 23-minute media conference in response to the rainbow jersey controversy that tore the playing group in half.
A narrative has been spun that Hasler “slammed” management. I’d suggest people watch it again. You’ll find a coach doing an admirable job answering tough questions from tough non-rugby league reporters about tough non-rugby league matters when someone from the front office should have been in the hot seat.
New chief executive Tony Mestrov hadn’t started, so Hasler was forced to stand in. Where was Penn? Where was acting CEO Gary Wolman? Where was whoever was responsible for the shit-show?
Instead, Hasler took all the bullets. Throughout the media cross-examination, he constantly apologised for the mistakes “we have made”. He threw nobody under the bus and it’s duplicitous to argue otherwise.
Penn and Mestrov have identified Anthony Seibold as a potential solution. Good grief.
Seibold is a nice enough guy, has a deep knowledge of the game and has a future as a head coach. But if he couldn’t handle the politics of the Broncos, how will he handle the politics of Manly, which often feels like a never-ending season of House of Cards?
He talked a good game to get the job at Red Hill. Now Penn is swallowing it up at Manly.
Clubs usually sack players after they lose the playing group. Hasler had pretty much the whole dressing-room, including Tom and Jake Trbojevic, firmly in his corner.
He did so by blindly, for better or worse, backing them. A week ago, with his own future uncertain, Hasler sat in a witness box providing a character reference for Manase Fainu, who has been found guilty of plunging a steak knife into the back of a man at a Mormon church dance in southwestern Sydney.
It’s become a modern-day reality in rugby league that clubs can’t sack a coach unless they have a viable alternative.
Hasler had one year to run on his $900,000-a-season deal. He was asked to do a review, then come up with a succession plan, so he suggested Josh Hannay, but the club rejected it and said they wanted Seibold anyway.
If Penn and Mestrov knew the answer to the question they were asking, why ask it?
This was always going to end one way: with Hasler being sacked and then launching legal action. Hasler is said to be devastated about his messy exit because of his 30-year association with the club — but he’ll be licking his lips about a payout.
Dib’s tongue must have been firmly planted in his cheek when he told News Corp earlier this week that Manly must sack Hasler immediately.
History buffs will remember Dib re-signed Hasler in April 2018 before sacking him six months later before the Bulldogs eventually paid Hasler more than $1 million in damages.
It’s unlikely to cost Manly that much but his legal team is confident about his position.
Shuffling Hasler out the door resolves little, though. On Penn’s watch, a once-proud club has descended into chaos. The buck stops with him.
There’s been speculation for years about the Penns selling out of Manly. Asking price: $40 million. They’ve recently knocked back offers of between $20 and $25 million.
If they keep paying out coaches and pissing on club legends, they’ll be lucky if they can hock it to Cash Converters.
MOUNTAIN OF MONEY
Glyn Schofield was the last jockey booked to ride in the $15 million The Everest (1200m) at Royal Randwick on Saturday.
Peter V’landys has taken the marketing war over The Everest to the Melbourne media this week.Credit:Rhett Wyman
Even if his mount, Ingratiating, finishes last, he’ll still collect $22,500, which is his five per cent of $450,000 in prizemoney. Not bad for just over a minute’s work.
That’s an indication of the ridiculous amount of money being thrown at this race.
Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys and the ATC deserve praise for the way they’ve transformed this meeting into a juggernaut, enticing new fans to the track. Racing’s future depends on them.
But it would be interesting to know how much V’landys, a self-described “disruptor” of Melbourne racing’s dominance in the spring, has spent in marketing The Everest since its inception in 2017.
Even this week, Racing NSW boldly took out front page advertising in The Herald Sun in Melbourne in Caulfield Cup week.
The race is a great sprint featuring quality horses made interesting by the prizemoney, but it will be decades before it can capture hearts like the Melbourne Cup, Cox Plate, Doncaster or Golden Slipper.
As the Herald’s legendary turf columnist Max Presnell, who has seen a race or two, mused this week: “Tradition and memories cannot be purchased, regardless of the prizemoney.”
Is Nature Strip, the world’s best sprinter, a certainty? You’d think so.
But after watching replay after replay of last year’s race, when Masked Crusader missed the start and weaved through the field to narrowly finish second, I know where my rent money’s going.
THE QUOTE
“I tried to run the other day and I’m like, ‘How was I the greatest athlete in the world?’” — Former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal speaks to Men’s Health about his weight loss journey. What a coincidence: I ask myself the same question every day.
THUMBS UP
Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander tamed Mount Panorama to win the Bathurst 1000, navigating bad weather, a burst water main on turn one, and some cowboy co-drivers who drove at the start like Ricky Bobby with an angry cougar on the back seat. It was a fitting end to Holden’s time at Bathurst.
THUMBS DOWN
Cricket introduced a raft of rule changes earlier this year, but it never got around to changing one of the most obvious: if a batter obstructs a fielder during play, the bowling side must appeal for a dismissal. And so it was that Australia’s Matthew Wade gave England bowler Mark Wood an Inglis-like left-hand fend with impunity.
It’s a big weekend for … the Independent State of Samoa as it kicks-off its Rugby League World Cup against hosts England at St James’ Park on Sunday morning (12.30am AEDT). Much has been made of Samoa’s squad, which is littered with NRL superstars, so the acid is on coach Matt Parish to press for a finals spot, justifying the decision from Samoa’s governing body to shun the Johns brothers and Sonny Bill Williams.
It’s an even bigger weekend for … George “Ferocious” Kambosos as he seeks revenge against Devin “The Dream” Haney in their lightweight rematch “for all the jewellery” at Rod Laver Arena on Sunday afternoon. Kambosos has changed trainers, shunned the media and successfully sought a new referee after getting jabbed into the middle of next week when the pair met in July.
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
