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The kid is good but he will never be sNAke.
Snake is the clubs best fullback in our history and for this dog to come on here say I would ever bag him. Has me livid. All time and Jake wanna do is be t-baz best mates. F them
Don't forget the Wombat when you are talking about our greatest full backs. I was fortunate to see all three play, the wombat was colossal in running on the burst and scoring and creating tries and kicking many goals too and winning four premierships to boot. Snake was the ultimate finisher, brave, played with severe adversity in relation to Type 1 Diabetes, poetry in motion when running and a very creative and unselfish player who created as many tries as he scored. Young Tom, wow so much potential and now is the time for him to take the next step and eliminate the costly errors and improve his consistency, If Snake can help in the coaching, Tommy will go to another level!!
 
It's a pity that Choc pissed his Manly legacy away.
When he played for Manly, he bled maroon and white and always gave 100%

I agree but compare say the Stewart brothers to him, all had issues , only one pissed on us from a great height.

I hate the fact he was made a life member.

But yes I agree he was one hell of a warrior.
 
I dont believe anyone in here really knows what went down with Choc at the time. I seem to recall that he stayed here for less money than he could attract elsewhere at his peak in respect of staying here and winning things with this club. he only turned sour when our backyard started losing its Manly appeal.. If you like him or not , Choc was one of the ultimate warriors for this club and he sweat blood and tears for this joint..
I believe him leaving this club would of been just as hard on him as it was for us. Make of that what you will. As far as I'm concerned he will always be a Manly Great.. Snake and Choc and Matai where my favourite players of the most recent successful era we had. If our team can emulate what these 3 did we will be unstoppable again.
 
I dont believe anyone in here really knows what went down with Choc at the time. I seem to recall that he stayed here for less money than he could attract elsewhere at his peak in respect of staying here and winning things with this club. he only turned sour when our backyard started losing its Manly appeal.. If you like him or not , Choc was one of the ultimate warriors for this club and he sweat blood and tears for this joint..
I believe him leaving this club would of been just as hard on him as it was for us. Make of that what you will. As far as I'm concerned he will always be a Manly Great.. Snake and Choc and Matai where my favourite players of the most recent successful era we had. If our team can emulate what these 3 did we will be unstoppable again.

Snake, Gifty, Matai, Ballin, Kitey, Tooves all left or were forced to leave for different reasons.....you think it wasn't hard on them? Yet only Choc bad mouthed the club! I'll remember his exploits on the field for the club but i'll also remember the disparaging remarks he made when he jumped ship to the Eels.......Manly great or not.
 
Choc wasn't known to ever keep his mouth shut.. He obviously has that trigger inside him and mouths off , others know how to handle it , doesn't mean he's a bad person.. Im sure we all have a friend or family member that's the same..
 
Choc wasn't known to ever keep his mouth shut.. He obviously has that trigger inside him and mouths off , others know how to handle it , doesn't mean he's a bad person.. Im sure we all have a friend or family member that's the same..

007....never said he's a bad person, however he was quite bitter in what he said about the club. Obviously it hurt him to have to leave but he could have done it amicably & without the remarks. I can understand his frustrations having to leave & his comments but he did come out again recently when the Barrett fiasco began & basically did the same again. I'm pretty sure Toovey had more reason to have a say but he refrained & has continued to back Manly. Would have gone down much better with a lot of supporters if Choc just kept quiet. I'm sure in time he'll be welcomed back.
 
I have no inside info .... but from the outside we witnessed Dessie not only quit the club, but take actions that would indicate he felt he didn't owe the club any favours ... Donny Singe and Crusher leave .. then in quick succession we saw Gifty let go, Foran and Choc leave acromoniously ... followed by Kite and Ballin released and then Snake and Matai under a cloud ...... then Toovey shafted .... not to mention a high turnover of admin staff and CEO's along with friction betwen the football club and even the Eagles Angels ...

It appears to me that there were things going on at the club and many Manly greats were not happy campers ..... Many on here in 2016 were saying that our culture had been destroyed ..... who or what was the root cause .... was our culture and many of our players just casualties in a front room power struggle ..... don't know ...

I am an adherent of the saying never hang your dirty washing out in public ..... but if the dirty washing has taken over ..... should you still stay silent ??

Can't say I liked Choc speaking out ..... but he obviously felt let down by a club he had lived and bled for and at the end felt any loyalty he owed the club had been comprimised ... sad ... if he was a brighter tool or more eloquent, maybe his comments and criticisms could have highlighted the problems at the club ... but as it turned out his comments just came acrooss as sour grapes ....
 
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I love Brett and am glad he’s coming back but that might also be why they couldn’t extend an olive branch to Tooves as Brett wouldn’t have come on board.

If I had the chance of either of those, I’d want a Tooves back...even if it’s not as assistant coach but in admin or football manager.

Brett spat the dummy quite badly at the end of his career yet Tooves always gave 100% and had Manly at heart in all his dealing during his time at the club and even after he was shafted.

The club has made huge strides the last couple of weeks but there is a piece of the jigsaw missing for me.
 
Choc’s exit and his subsequent comments about the club still rile me a bit, to be honest. I understand that he had issues with the club and that he is fairly inarticulate but what he fails to realise is that by crapping on the club publicly he is crapping on the fans. Those same fans that, no matter what he did on and off the field, turned up each week and cheered for him. That’s why I respect the dignified exits of others - for guys like Gift, Kite and Ballin, we too felt the pain of their exit.
In saying that, if Choc came out and said “I’ve been a dope and I want to be part of the club again”, Id be ready to smoke the peace pipe. I think there is a good chance that Choc will be brought back into the fold with Des at the helm.
 
Just on Watmough accepting unders from the club to keep the team together on hopes of another GF - I dont think he was ever paid less than he deserved, but that he & the senior playing group agreed to backended contracts in order for the club to keep them all for as long as possible.

From what I recall, when talk first surfaced of Choc going to Parra, his salary for his last season with us was rumored to be $900k - $600k of that was his salary while $300k was unpaid SOO appearance money - money he'd agreed to be paid at the end of his contract to keep the team together.

I gather he was bitter about Manly not offering him another contract but in light of him only playing 17 (?) games for the eels & breaking down due to a knee injury (that the doc at Manly knew was a pre-existing condition but for some reason when he took up his new role as the NRL medico he agreeed it was a collision in pre-season training that caused it), I'd say Manly were smart in the decision they made.

Parra only offered Choc millions (including taking on his $900k final season with Manly debt) to entice Foran there, & Choc ended up having to take legal action to get paid his last season's salary by the eels - I wonder if he'll ever badmouth Parra for that?

Like others on here I consider Choc a Manly legend & indeed he bled, sweated & cried for Manly when he was here. It's just unfortunate he tends to react emotionally without thinking first & said what he said about Manly.
 
Menzies was also punted at the end and still wanted to play. He didn’t bad mouth the club once. He took unders to stay many times. I know this for fact as I spoken to him and his family about it.
Some people in this world are gentleman others are like Choc. Glad he played for us for so long though.
 
Ah you were too young to see Graham Eadie at his peak. Eadie was a very fast forward like full back who crashed or out sped oppositions, positionally brilliant, an excellent defender and could kick goals from anywhere. Not as scintillatingly fast as Stewart, but if Fulton hadn't come along Eadie may well have been our best ever player. He was awesome. In my best ever Manly team I have Eadie at full back, Stewart and Irvine on the wings, Lyon and Fulton centres, Lyons five eighth and Toovey half.
The forwards would be Reilly, Randall, Menzies, Bull, Krillich, O'Neill and reserves Hasler, Watmough, Kennedy, Roberts
Ah you were too young to see Graham Eadie at his peak. Eadie was a very fast forward like full back who crashed or out sped oppositions, positionally brilliant, an excellent defender and could kick goals from anywhere. Not as scintillatingly fast as Stewart, but if Fulton hadn't come along Eadie may well have been our best ever player. He was awesome. In my best ever Manly team I have Eadie at full back, Stewart and Irvine on the wings, Lyon and Fulton centres, Lyons five eighth and Toovey half.
The forwards would be Reilly, Randall, Menzies, Bull, Krillich, O'Neill and reserves Hasler, Watmough, Kennedy, Roberts
So so true! Wombat was the best fullback - most complete fullback we have ever had. Those who claim Snake or Turbo or Ridge simply never saw the Wombat. He could make a break, run away and score, kick goals from anywhere, safe as a tank under the bomb, swerve, set up players, was a punishing tackler and great great cover defender in that last line AND he was so tough and big he could and would just run over opponents. Sorry but the other three are very good fullbacks - Wombat was a great fullback!
 
So so true! Wombat was the best fullback - most complete fullback we have ever had. Those who claim Snake or Turbo or Ridge simply never saw the Wombat. He could make a break, run away and score, kick goals from anywhere, safe as a tank under the bomb, swerve, set up players, was a punishing tackler and great great cover defender in that last line AND he was so tough and big he could and would just run over opponents. Sorry but the other three are very good fullbacks - Wombat was a great fullback!


Wombat was the most complete Manly player I have ever seen.

Only 18 when he won the 1972 GF :clap:

Amazing natural athlete, didn't need an army of support staff or fulltime training to produce his best each week :nerd:
 
Pretty hard to compare Eadie to Stewart really . One was a power player the other had silky skills with speed to burn . Combine them both and here you will find the best fullback the world has ever seen.
 
Snake, Gifty, Matai, Ballin, Kitey, Tooves all left or were forced to leave for different reasons.....you think it wasn't hard on them? Yet only Choc bad mouthed the club! I'll remember his exploits on the field for the club but i'll also remember the disparaging remarks he made when he jumped ship to the Eels.......Manly great or not.
He bagged ex teammates too like Orford & Wolfy which was bad form.
 
Team P W L PD Pts
3 3 0 48 6
4 3 1 28 6
3 2 1 10 6
4 2 2 39 4
3 2 1 28 4
3 2 1 15 4
3 2 1 14 4
2 1 1 13 4
2 1 1 6 4
3 2 1 -3 4
3 1 2 0 2
3 1 2 -5 2
3 1 2 -15 2
3 1 2 -22 2
3 1 2 -36 2
2 0 2 -56 2
3 0 3 -64 0
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