Manly coach Trent Barrett says Jackson Hastings was a ticking time bomb at Sea Eagles
SEA Eagles coach Trent Barrett was desperate to offload Jackson Hastings in February to avoid increasing conflict between the utility player and his teammates.
Barrett believed the hostility would eventually boil over and he needed to nip the problem in the bud.
But when no rival club could be found for Hastings, Barrett thought the best course of action would be to banish him to the NSW Cup for the rest of this season.
Club officials made Hastings’ manager Sam Ayoub aware of the tension between his client and his Manly teammates.
And Barrett called a meeting with Hastings, Ayoub, the RLPA and Manly welfare officer Quentin Pongia on February 2 in a desperate bid to try to end the friction.
Unfortunately, the problem couldn’t be resolved.
It can also be revealed that:
• MANLY may sanction skipper Daly Cherry-Evans over two scuffles — one physical and one verbal — with Hastings when the Sea Eagles were in Gladstone to play Gold Coast in round five.
• CLUB officials and Hastings have had ongoing dialogue about the player’s behaviour.
• MANLY arranged counselling for Hastings but it’s understood he didn’t continue with the sessions.
He will play against Wyong on Saturday at Berkeley Vale Oval.
Four Manly players were scheduled to speak with the media — Api Koroisau, Brad Parker, Brian Kelly and Jono Wright — but Barrett overruled and fronted up for an intense nine-minute interview.
“This is an issue we tried to fix and I wish it hadn’t come to this, but it has,” Barrett said. “It is certainly isn’t a one-off incident.”
“We have pretty much documented a lot of things over the past 12 months,” Barrett said.
“The last formal one was on the second of February, where we actually had Jackson in here with the RLPA, his manager, and our welfare officer to try and work out a plan.
“We wanted to work through some issues to avoid a situation that we have just gone through. Unfortunately, it was an issue I saw coming and we tried to address it a long time ago and it has now implicated another player (Cherry-Evans).