Credit to coach Geoff Toovey

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SeaEagleRock8

Sea Eagle Lach
Premium Member
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Geoff Toovey has convinced me. His effort in taking this team to an unlucky grand final loss has been outstanding.

There will always be room for improvement, but I don't buy the 'played dumb' or 'poor-use-of-bench' comments.

Take into account how many respected judges didn't pick us to make the finals at all. Take into account the number of largely unheralded new faces. Take into account the injuries and suspension we suffered. Take into account the 'rub of the green' (to put it as politely as possible) that went against us so often.

Through it all, our team consistently played with tremendous spirit, toughness and skill. That doesn't happen with a mediocre coach.

End-of-era? Please. With Toovey in charge, I see nothing but further improvement ahead. In fact my early tip is ... Manly for minor premiers in 2014!
 
We can throw all of the support staff into that as well, in particular Donny Singe. Our guys fitness and mental cappabilities were outstanding this year and credit goes to Donny. I thought our halves were awesome and recruiting Joey to mentor these guys was a master stroke.

I rate Toovs very highly, for him to be as good as he was this year he needed to have the support and he done a great job surrounding himself with the right people.
 
I liked a lot of what Tooves did. He has put his own stamp of style on this club. One thing that I enjoyed was the freedom he gave the halves (and some others) to roam on opposite sides. I can't figure the theory of strictly playing certain players rigidly on one side of the park, if you've got good attacking weapons, let them go where the ball is. Also less reliance on the second man play was good to see. Maybe Joey having some input there helped with our attacking options.

We do need to work on our attack inside the opposition 20. It seems we struggle to score more from that position than we do from further out. If he can makes us a bit more clinical in that respect than 2014 will be a good year.
 
I was critical of Tooves record, but I am happy with what he has done. I stand by the assertion that the bench was poorly used in the GF by allowing Kite, Lawrence and Choc to be off at the one time, but I cannot fault him otherwise. If it wasn't for Hayne he would be a premiership winning coach right now.
 
Like I said, there's always room for improvement. Chooks scored most tries in the regular season with 122. We were next with 120. So we didn't do too bad in attack.
 
Not enough has been made of an 'ageing squad' that very very few experts predicted would even make the 8. For Tooves to take this squad and mold it into one that not only made the GF, but went within a whisker of winning it....was an unbelievable achievement.

The future is bright. Would we all be happier if the Sharks had knocked us out in Week 2? We came 2nd, and whilst ageing, our key players are hitting 29/30. This is their peak!!

Then there is the youth of Hiku, Gutherson, Jake T, Chee-Kam,....Foz...DCE!

Toovey has molded this team into an extension of himself....tough/skillful, and they will fight over a bone.
 
Toovey took a team to the GF that was giving meaningful minutes to a front row of a journeyman Fa'aoso, a utility player Rose, an ageing Kite, and practically a rookie Lawrence. That in itself is an amazing feat. Awesome job by Tooves.
 
Tooves is the one I felt for the most after the GF loss. Really wanted him to win the title and shut all the knockers up. He's a legend and had a great year.
 
They can say what they like about Tooves and that he took over a premiership winning team from Des Hasler. But facts are facts, if he was hopeless, we would have fallen apart like most 'experts' predicted. Manly didn't fall apart and Tooves has taken us to a Prelim final and a Grand Final in two seasons as our coach. And that was after he was thrown into the deep end and had to keep things together in the wake of Des defecting to Belmore.

I think its about time he started to get some credit for his coaching rather than the stick he does.

Just one thing. I loved his comment in Sunday's post-game press conference about people getting into trouble when criticising refs....."Sorry, some of us get into trouble". Without naming names I think that was a big UP YOURS to Todd Greenturd.
 
Toovey has been outstanding. Him and Donny kept Manly together. If an outsider had come in after Dessie I sincerely doubt we would have played in a Grand Final this year.
The coach and team have progressed through the shock transition from the Hasler era together. Things could have turned out a lot different if a non-Manly person came in.
The team needed Tooves to rise to the challenge and he did. I raise my school night red fizzy drink to our legend former player and current coach.
 
Full credit must also go to Tooves for biting his tongue in the post match press conference and resist blowing up about the referees. I reckon he would have liked to, but didn't want to show any disrespect to the Roosters Premiership win. He is a class act.
 
Darren said:
Totally agree, wonderful effort to get this squad so far.

Cambo, SheikEagle and Manly Backer: Please note: Another positive comment: 1/1

Darren said:
thanks Sheik, just have to get Cambo to reply and all will be good again lol

Darren, just go outrageously overboard with contrasting positive comments to the point of it being sickening.

That will provide some balance and ensure the response from Cambo et al.
 
Just look at how st merge have fallen apart with a new coach just a year after winning the premiership.

Nuff said.
 
Sure. What would you like to say about it?


OK. I'll say something about it.

The team seemed to get better as the season went on, and this is reflected by our results against the other top 4 teams.

Even with the Roosters, who we couldn't beat in 4 attempts all year, the last 2 matches, in the finals, were so close they could have gone either way.

Hence my optimism that Toovey actually knows something about coaching.
 
I love the guy but his post match press conference Sunday was an embarrassment to the fans, the player, the club and himself.

He is better than that.
 

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