mike walker touched on it earlier in this thread and he's 100% correct.
If not for the Penn's pulling the offer from DCE prior to Christmas 2014 so they could concentrate on re-signing Foreign, DCE would have been signed, sealed and delivered for less than half of what we eventually got him to backflip for. The worst part was that every man and his dog other than Manly management seemed to know that Foreign wanted out. It didn't matter which club he went to, so long as Arthur was the coach (which makes it obvious why Manly sounded out Arthur about returning). He strung the club along for months, during which time DCE was shopped around to anyone with a cheque book. He was sighted at Cronulla before eventually putting pen to paper with the Gold Coast.
Only after DCE signed with the Tits did Foreign then announce that he was off to join the Dalai at Parra-doesn't-matta with most rumours pointing to him actually having signed with them at least a couple of months earlier. It was only then that the Penn's realised they had phucked up big time and we were going to lose BOTH of our international halves unless something drastic happened. Though rather than admitting fault, like any good club board they just blamed the coach. When the situation started getting desperate closing in on Round 13 last year, that's when Bozo was brought in to try and get DCE back onside.
The Gifty saga? Blame that one on the Quantum faction who were the major stake holders at the time and it was them who didn't want to re-sign Gifty. Tooves as coach wasn't really on either side (Quantum or Penn), he was just doing as he was told with regards to offering Gifty a contract, but unfortunately he is the one that took the fall for it. From the moment the Penn's gained majority control of the club, Tooves was on borrowed time and about the only thing that might have saved his job was winning the 2015 premiership, which didn't happen.
Losing Gifty caused big problems within the club, especially with the players. But lets fact it, as he showed with Souffs last year he was past his best and out injured half the time. It caused us to also lose Watmouth who lost a lot of respect from the fans for the way he left and with the things he said. But like Gifty, ultimately it probably worked out well because he was also past his best and his body is basically falling apart. And as for losing Foreign? Look, TBH I would have loved it had he stayed with Manly, but only if he was committed to playing for the club and not the crap we saw from him in his last 18 months here.
There are two I really feel for in all of this. Tooves for the way he was treated throughout 2015 leading to his sacking. He deserved much better than that. And I also feel for Trent Barrett. The bloke is on a hiding to nothing. He's a rookie coach who has been given a team most are putting up as a definite top 4 chance. If he doesn't get there or go better and win a premiership by at least 2017, he won't be overly popular with the Manly fans and who knows how the Penn's will treat him.
The Penn's may own the majority of this club and realistically we'd be nowhere without their money....but geez they are full of $hit aren't they?
