sheridanstand78
First Grader
Here we are halfway through another season where it is obvious that our team is way behind its rivals in every facet of the game!!
What really disturbs me is the total lack of discipline around the club. Right now rumours are leaking from the club about player movements and it is clear that all is not well and the club needs to have a plan moving forward.
Togetherness:
A hallmark of our great teams was their togetherness. The willingness to tough out and fight for everything out there. What I see no is glimpses of that and rarely is it shown for 80 minutes. Those great teams had to deal with star players being long term injured. Between 2009 and 2010, Brett Stewart barely played due to the cruel suspension and the serious knee injuries yet the team made the finals in both years!
Retention and Recruitment:
This is where most of are really bewildered by the strategy of the club. At the end of 2015, we watched a whole lot of players get released, some who have gone on the be stars of their clubs, like Gutho, Hynes and Ramien. We squandered a legacy of that Holden Cup team in 2015 and to some extent we did it again in 2017. What annoys me is that the club went down a pathway of recruiting young players from western Sydney, had coaches like David Heath and Wayne Lambkin do amazing jobs to gel those sides and both those coaches were pushed out of our club and they were big mistakes!!
We are now dealing with two significant powerbrokers in Tartak and Moses who manage a lot of our playing group and coach. It is clear that they are having far too much influence on our retention and recruitment and I am aghast that the club is allowing the Fainu brothers to see. To me that is most brainless decision since allowing Gutho to leave. It is going to set us back a long way. The club nurtured the Fainu family when it all went wrong for Manase and to now it appears want to wash their hands of the family is puzzling.
Salary cap management:
There is major indiscipline in how this has been managed. We had a problem at the end of 2014 with an ageing team being pulled apart by the cap and due to the lack of leadership we lost quality players and did not retain at first the halves in DCE and Foran. That ripped the club apart and the desperate deal to keep DCE was at the expense of balance of our cap.
The club invested in the Turbo brothers in 2019, which was the right to do back then and in my opinion this should have been a 3 year deal and review things as since that deal, Tommy is cursed by serious injury after serious injury, played 35 percent of games and we have no wriggle room to replace him.
We need a balanced cap and when DCE and the Turbo deals expire or are up for renewal, there needs to be a big rethink about how this is managed. Nothing will change till the end of the 2024 season for DCE and 2025 for the Turbos.
Feeder club:
I have been a massive critic of this arrangement with Blacktown and up until this season it has been a rank failure. Finally they are competitive and playing some solid footy, my question now, where is the reward for this? I understand that we have a 30 man roster and it is filled. What is needed is for players who are not performing to be dropped and replaced by players who deserve a go. Morgan Harper is a much maligned player, last night he had a real dig in first grade in a badly beaten team, playing at Blacktown made him work on a few things in his game and he looked a lot more confident. We have good players who deserve a go. Jake Toby is a standout and now that Tommy is hurt he is a really good option if they play Garrick in the centres. Gordon should replace Lawton as we need someone to spark things from dummy half to assist Croker.
Dead wood
There are too many passengers in our team right now and some are on big coin. You see their indiscipline week in and week out and some of them are not improving. The club needs to be ruthless about moving them on as right now the price is the promising juniors we have it appears do not want to stay.
Coaching:
I will give Seibold the benefit of doubt for now. I think he came in with a point to prove and his challenge is to close the gap between the best and worst performances. His pressers are mostly honest and I appreciate him for that. Last night however was not a brave defensive effort. We again lost all the key moments due to shocking missed tackles and bad decision making, lack of urgency. These are all effort areas and this needs to improve right away.
The club should immediately move Flanagan on now that he is committed to another club. He is aware of our retention and recruitment and that sits uncomfortably with me. Get in Toovey and right the ship. We badly need leadership right now and some old fashioned discipline to get the team back on track.
Leadership and ownership:
The Penn's have controlled the joint since 2014 and promised that we would have a functioning club. All I see is dysfunction, egos out of control, a huge turnover of personnel and a lack of communication with the fans and the members, discipline starts from the top and the fish rots from the head and we are in a mess and we have had a plethora of CEOs trying to fix the mess and we are not improving as a club. We are behind our rivals in most areas that are measured, like sponsorship, membership numbers, game day experience.
I love this club, loved it for nearly 50 years and in the whole time I supported them, I've never seen such disarray and indiscipline. I worry about our future, where we are headed? I want to see the Manly that I love back as a strong and functioning club, as fans and members it is what we are used to and deserve!!
What really disturbs me is the total lack of discipline around the club. Right now rumours are leaking from the club about player movements and it is clear that all is not well and the club needs to have a plan moving forward.
Togetherness:
A hallmark of our great teams was their togetherness. The willingness to tough out and fight for everything out there. What I see no is glimpses of that and rarely is it shown for 80 minutes. Those great teams had to deal with star players being long term injured. Between 2009 and 2010, Brett Stewart barely played due to the cruel suspension and the serious knee injuries yet the team made the finals in both years!
Retention and Recruitment:
This is where most of are really bewildered by the strategy of the club. At the end of 2015, we watched a whole lot of players get released, some who have gone on the be stars of their clubs, like Gutho, Hynes and Ramien. We squandered a legacy of that Holden Cup team in 2015 and to some extent we did it again in 2017. What annoys me is that the club went down a pathway of recruiting young players from western Sydney, had coaches like David Heath and Wayne Lambkin do amazing jobs to gel those sides and both those coaches were pushed out of our club and they were big mistakes!!
We are now dealing with two significant powerbrokers in Tartak and Moses who manage a lot of our playing group and coach. It is clear that they are having far too much influence on our retention and recruitment and I am aghast that the club is allowing the Fainu brothers to see. To me that is most brainless decision since allowing Gutho to leave. It is going to set us back a long way. The club nurtured the Fainu family when it all went wrong for Manase and to now it appears want to wash their hands of the family is puzzling.
Salary cap management:
There is major indiscipline in how this has been managed. We had a problem at the end of 2014 with an ageing team being pulled apart by the cap and due to the lack of leadership we lost quality players and did not retain at first the halves in DCE and Foran. That ripped the club apart and the desperate deal to keep DCE was at the expense of balance of our cap.
The club invested in the Turbo brothers in 2019, which was the right to do back then and in my opinion this should have been a 3 year deal and review things as since that deal, Tommy is cursed by serious injury after serious injury, played 35 percent of games and we have no wriggle room to replace him.
We need a balanced cap and when DCE and the Turbo deals expire or are up for renewal, there needs to be a big rethink about how this is managed. Nothing will change till the end of the 2024 season for DCE and 2025 for the Turbos.
Feeder club:
I have been a massive critic of this arrangement with Blacktown and up until this season it has been a rank failure. Finally they are competitive and playing some solid footy, my question now, where is the reward for this? I understand that we have a 30 man roster and it is filled. What is needed is for players who are not performing to be dropped and replaced by players who deserve a go. Morgan Harper is a much maligned player, last night he had a real dig in first grade in a badly beaten team, playing at Blacktown made him work on a few things in his game and he looked a lot more confident. We have good players who deserve a go. Jake Toby is a standout and now that Tommy is hurt he is a really good option if they play Garrick in the centres. Gordon should replace Lawton as we need someone to spark things from dummy half to assist Croker.
Dead wood
There are too many passengers in our team right now and some are on big coin. You see their indiscipline week in and week out and some of them are not improving. The club needs to be ruthless about moving them on as right now the price is the promising juniors we have it appears do not want to stay.
Coaching:
I will give Seibold the benefit of doubt for now. I think he came in with a point to prove and his challenge is to close the gap between the best and worst performances. His pressers are mostly honest and I appreciate him for that. Last night however was not a brave defensive effort. We again lost all the key moments due to shocking missed tackles and bad decision making, lack of urgency. These are all effort areas and this needs to improve right away.
The club should immediately move Flanagan on now that he is committed to another club. He is aware of our retention and recruitment and that sits uncomfortably with me. Get in Toovey and right the ship. We badly need leadership right now and some old fashioned discipline to get the team back on track.
Leadership and ownership:
The Penn's have controlled the joint since 2014 and promised that we would have a functioning club. All I see is dysfunction, egos out of control, a huge turnover of personnel and a lack of communication with the fans and the members, discipline starts from the top and the fish rots from the head and we are in a mess and we have had a plethora of CEOs trying to fix the mess and we are not improving as a club. We are behind our rivals in most areas that are measured, like sponsorship, membership numbers, game day experience.
I love this club, loved it for nearly 50 years and in the whole time I supported them, I've never seen such disarray and indiscipline. I worry about our future, where we are headed? I want to see the Manly that I love back as a strong and functioning club, as fans and members it is what we are used to and deserve!!
