I think the Manly squad we have now is the best squad of young and older talent than I can remember including the 70's when we tried to buy comp. At the moment we have a wealth of players that can cover all positions and we've probably got the 3 best youngsters in the NRL with DCE, Foran and Hoppa. Throw in the likes of the stewart bros,matai, wolf, robbo, t-rex rodneys, choc, joe, kite, king, ballin etc.etc. Then we have Lussick, robinson, Harrison, oldfield.
The only problem is how many can we keep?
Does anyone else think there's a better squad of 25 in the NRL now?
We have a a strong well balanced squad - no doubt about that. Our present players arent all champions but play well as a team.
In the seventies we had a team of absolute champions - Eadie, Fulton, Randall etc were not only best of their time but all time. We didnt try to buy a comp - we won comps. We bought some players, sure, but most still came throught the ranks. From memory we bought less players from other teams then than say the Bulldogs and Souths do currently.
I think that while our present side is strong, it is Des that is the difference. Put some of our current players in other teams and I think they would become very ordinary. In the seventies our reserve grade side would have beaten many of the other first grade sides. Not the case now. Our current squad is very good but I reckon a bit early to compare to the seventies.
