I was lucky enough that my first game of Rugby League was going to the 1972 Grand Final. Been supporting winners ever since that day. And what a wonderful ride it has been with a Premiership every decade ever since that beautiful day when I fell in love with the Mighty Manly Sea Eagles.
A Premiership EVERY DECADE since the Seventies.
No other team has managed this and it's now worse than under threat: it seems an impossibility.
I know that today we're all focused on the loss of Tom, but until, dare I say, the arrival of the Penns, we have never been reliant of one player. We've had an ethos which has now completely disappeared.
I think the rot set in with the spiteful sacking of Tooves. It was there that the Penn family really showed their colours: it's about us, not the Mighty Manly Sea Eagles.
Since then, what have we had? Barrett, the letting go of proud Manly junior Gutho, the ridiculous Fultons experiment of mining Western Sydney for the dross left over from the Panthers, Eels, and Tigers, a completely unbalanced cap, God only knows how many CEOs, the failed return of Hasler, the Pride jersey debacle, and now a team full of lazy bastards who give up when they can't just give the ball to poor bloody Tom in the vague hope of getting magic from nothing. And then there's the appointment of a proud Spoon winning coach as our saviour.
We are a rabble. And it's so bloody depressing.
2023 is gone as a premiership possibility. I dare say, so is 2024 and 2025 given our coach and roster.
The question is how do we win a premiership by 2029. Can we?
* I used the word Pride deliberately because we have none of any colour.
A Premiership EVERY DECADE since the Seventies.
No other team has managed this and it's now worse than under threat: it seems an impossibility.
I know that today we're all focused on the loss of Tom, but until, dare I say, the arrival of the Penns, we have never been reliant of one player. We've had an ethos which has now completely disappeared.
I think the rot set in with the spiteful sacking of Tooves. It was there that the Penn family really showed their colours: it's about us, not the Mighty Manly Sea Eagles.
Since then, what have we had? Barrett, the letting go of proud Manly junior Gutho, the ridiculous Fultons experiment of mining Western Sydney for the dross left over from the Panthers, Eels, and Tigers, a completely unbalanced cap, God only knows how many CEOs, the failed return of Hasler, the Pride jersey debacle, and now a team full of lazy bastards who give up when they can't just give the ball to poor bloody Tom in the vague hope of getting magic from nothing. And then there's the appointment of a proud Spoon winning coach as our saviour.
We are a rabble. And it's so bloody depressing.
2023 is gone as a premiership possibility. I dare say, so is 2024 and 2025 given our coach and roster.
The question is how do we win a premiership by 2029. Can we?
* I used the word Pride deliberately because we have none of any colour.