Manly coach Des Hasler spent most of Monday sitting in a room doing one-on-one season reviews with his players before attending the club’s presentation at The Star later that evening.
Doesn’t sound like a coach ready to move on, does it?
Then again, maybe it does. Aside from the praying mantis and sand shark, few eat their own quite like the Sea Eagles.
Manly are at war with themselves and the struggle involves familiar characters: Hasler, the so-called mad scientist who will never change; the Fultons, who deny they’re involved even though everyone says otherwise; Scott Penn, the chairman and owner who runs the club via remote control from New York; captain Daly Cherry-Evans, who again finds himself on the outer with some of his teammates; Peter Peters, who is mates with Hasler but also loyal to the Fultons and always prepared to voice his opinion; and a new chief executive, in this case Tony Mestrov, whom Penn has parachuted in to finally sort out the politics on the northern peninsula.
If Mestrov succeeds, don’t be surprised if he’s poached by another organisation like, say, the United Nations. Unlike previous chief executives, he might just have a chance.
The late, great Bob Fulton still casts a long shadow over Manly but whether his children — Scott, Kristie and Brett, all of whom work at the club — can exert the same influence remains to be seen.
Manly coach Des Hasler is under fire … but why?Credit:Getty
Indeed, you sense we wouldn’t be reading any of this if the Great Bozo was still around, such was his ability to control the warring factions while usually getting his way in the end, bless him.
This is some mess, though, even by Manly standards. Not for the first time, Hasler’s methods are being questioned. He’s being told to “change”, just as he was in his last, toxic year at the Bulldogs.
Clearly, some at the Sea Eagles are trying to push him into walking of his own accord, even though he has one year left on his deal.
As most people know, Hasler is the most frugal individual in the history of rugby league, nudging out Paul Gallen, Wayne Bennett and Garry Jack for the title.
The late Bob Fulton still casts a long shadow over the Manly club.Credit:Fairfax Archive
As a player, he once stopped in the tunnel at Brookvale at half-time to pick up a 50-cent piece (he maintains it was a dollar) but more recently, as coach, he did laps around a building waiting for free parking on the street to kick in before attending a function.
In other words, if Manly or the factions within Manly want Hasler gone before his time, they better get out the chequebook. The Bulldogs tried to box clever with him and his agent, George Mimis, and ended up paying Hasler a seven-figure sum for unfair dismissal.
There are two questions that require consideration before that happens.
Has Hasler lost the playing group? And if not Hasler, then who? Who else can survive the Manly viper’s nest?
Ignore the denials: the playing group remains split because of the Pride/Inclusivity jumper controversy when seven players decided not to play because of their religious beliefs.
Some players remain aggrieved they were not consulted. They don’t buy the line that the football department didn’t know about the change in the jumper.
Other players, however, are angry the players decided not to play, thereby trashing their season and a top-eight finish.
That Manly didn’t win a match since those seven players stood down speaks more about the playing group and their relationship with one another than their relationship with Hasler, who was a tower of strength during that ugly week of headlines and thinkpieces.
If anyone in a Sea Eagles jumper is looking for an example to follow from next season, they could do worse than look at the injured Jake Trbojevic on Friday night, sitting on the sideline in the pouring rain at Accor Stadium as his side took on Canterbury.
Some believe Trbojevic should replace Cherry-Evans as captain. It wouldn’t be the worst idea.
2GB’s Ray Hadley revealed on Monday players were angry when Hasler allowed Cherry-Evans and his family “special treatment” to stay in offsite accommodation when the entire premiership relocated to Queensland.
“So you had the coach allowing the captain to be special and live in a house away from the rest of the players,” Hadley, who was one of Bob Fulton’s best friends, said. “And that created a divide.”
It’s a dreadful double standard and an air-swing from the coach— but is it enough to move him on?
Questions are also being asked about his support staff, with a strong push under way to get rid of Don Singe, Hasler’s long-time head of performance.
There’s an argument the Sea Eagles looked unfit this season, getting overrun in matches including and, in particular, their infamous capitulation against North Queensland.
It’s a valid concern and very unlike Hasler’s Manly teams of the past, when he and Singe were at the cutting edge of sports science.
Hasler will sit down on Thursday with Mestrov and Penn, who has returned from New York, to thrash it out. If they enforce strict conditions on Hasler, stand back and watch the fireworks.
This is a line-in-the-sand moment for Manly.
For years, Hasler has been a law unto himself at the club. A noted control freak, it’s been out of necessity as Penn and the board show only a passing interest while a production line of chief executives who don’t know how to play Manly politics gets chewed up and spat out.
This is the Sea Eagles’ chance to be a professional football club run by a chair and board, which directs the chief executive, who then tells the football department and coach how it’s going to be.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Stream the NRL Premiership 2022 live and free on 9Now.
