The Daly Cherrygraph

[47MVEagle]

This should've been done back in 2015 when the 2005-2013 premiership crew were at the end. We supposedly had Fulton's pathways programs. Well where did that get us. We threw bags of $$$ at 3 players who've delivered fu*kall because we've put cast-offs around them for a decade.

And also signed some 10 or 11 players from the western pathways program who:

-passed away (RIP Keith Titmuss)
-stabbed a bloke after we let Api go to invest in him (Manase)
-never got his fitness up to scratch & so was constantly injured (Schuster)

While the others never really hit any great heights & have all (apart from Olakau’atu & Saab) been moved on & haven’t proven to be stars of the game.

I think there was too much transition within our club’s systems plus the top heavy salary cap of DCE, Turbo & Burbo that has created the situation we find ourselves in today - a starstudded backline with an ordinary pack of forwards who are either out injured or only show fire & hunger occasionally.

I’m hoping with DCE going that it’s the end of Manly being hamstrung by 3 of our players taking up such a large chunk of our cap & that we can go to market & buy a good prop or two, so we can regain balance across our squad.

Lodge & TKO are in the twilight of their careers, Paseka’s hot & cold (& injured), Sipley is also hot & cold & doesn’t appear to be a natural leader & won’t ever take control of our pack IMO.

 

[HoldenV8]

Can't wait to see the back of him.

We'll support him while he's in the maroon and white, but the fact is that over the past couple of weeks he's managed to burn a lot of bridges even with the fans who've long defended him over the backflip saga.

But for now he's still a Manly player.

For now.....

 

[HoldenV8]

Homeward bound.

Logic says that if he was staying in Sydney he probably wouldn't be looking at selling the his house.....

 

[Chip and Chase]

Since 1951 when we made our first GF, this is the longest drought the club has ever gone through in terms of playing in a premiership decider. 11 years since we've had a chance of taking home the chocolates, and you can most likely say it'll be 12 years by the end of this season.

Over that time, coaches have come and gone. CEO's have come and gone. Forwards have come and gone. Backs have come and gone. But there has been one constant during that time. Let's see what happens when that constant is gone. I'm willing to bet we won't go another 10 years without a GF appearance.

 

[HoldenV8]

The problem with Manly is Penn .Whilst i do admire anyone who puts up their hard earnt cash the issue at Manly start at the top. Manly is essentially Penns business and its not performing. Beam me up Scotty!

Like I said in yesterday's game day thread, its no coincidence that the running of this club really has turned to 💩 in the decade since the Penn's became the owners.

 

[eaglebuzz]

I don't buy that excuse either

Have a look at the Dogs pack that canned Newcastle on the weekend. Kikau was not even playing

A bunch of Neville's playing in the forwards, but playing as a well coached machine of effort on effort vs our forwards playing like a bunch of not coached individuals.

Newcastle lost half their bench in the first minute and defended bravely with no ball in the first half, the Dogs basically had the game won through circumstance.

 

[madmax]

They have less "name" talent than us yet they are closer to a premiership than us.People laughed at ciraldo the first season but he knows what works it starts upfront and with defence we seem to be obsessed with attack.

Not denying they have a huge cheque book also but I'm certain we are paying some players to much in certain positions.

Example are we a better team for signing Brooks? I don't think we are we could have put a youngster in that position and spent on others. Another is Koula,Garrick or Saab one of them should be moved on to save dollars imo.

Yawn zzzzzzzz

 

[Bradza]

“No names” is not meant to be taken literally and I certainly didn’t say they weren’t good players. The point is they have no real superstars compared to say Melbourne or the Broncos, and their squad certainly doesn’t scream “billionaire owner.” Their success has less to do with how much money their owner has in his bank account and more to do with a smart back office, a good coach, recruitment based on character, team structures and discipline. All things Manly should be able to replicate, regardless of how much money Penn has in his account.

What we do is concentrate our salary cap into 3-4 players, cross our fingers they stay healthy or decide to leave, then spend the rest on “whoever is available” from the stable of certain player managers, without regard to an overarching recruitment framework that seeks to achieve a predetermined style of play, apart from “use our weapons”.

While I reluctantly sit here admiring what the Dogs have done with their defence (great base to work from), for the sake of balance can I just point out that Canterbury haven’t had any ‘success’ yet.

They have won five games against mostly average opposition. They shut Cronulla down but the Sharks were devoid of spark that night.

Their defence got them to the semis last year and was almost enough to beat us but in the end it wasn’t enough. We won because we had adequate defence / experience to stay in the game and we also had high grade attacking power when we needed it at the end.

So they are coming at this from the opposite side to us. They still need to find balance to actually have success. I think they’ll have to find the right super star and offload some of their mid level hard workers to get to that premiership level. We need to do the reverse and we desperately need some luck with Tom’s body.

At the moment Canterbury probably have more pieces in place (on and off field) than us to get there but they have still got to do that.

 

[HoldenV8]

Yeah that's true too but it was all part of the dominoes falling. At one stage Manly were trying to sign both DCE & Foz for 700k each then with all the harumpf going on the Manly bosses pulled both contracts which started the Titans malarkey. At the end of the day all parties came out with **** all over them

From memory, the club pulled DCE's offer and told him he could look for another club, essentially putting all of their eggs into keeping Foran ... not knowing that Foz had already decided he was off to Parramatta. Whether he'd already signed I can't remember right now.

It was only after DCE announced he was off to the Titans, and Foz announced he was off to Parramatta, that the club realised it had fvcked up big time and were losing both of their international halves in one hit. After realising it was pointless trying to turn Foz (which leads me to believe he'd long before signed with the Eels), the club threw everything including the kitchen sink to try and get DCE to backflip.

It took 5 years before Qld forgave DCE. Some there still haven't.

DCE's reputation took a huge hit with many accusing him of chasing the money. Its a stigma that is alive and well today and the truth is he's done himself no favours with how he's carried on in the past fortnight.

And truth be told, as I said previously it put a $1.3m noose around our salary cap that shaped our squads for the past decade. That is the true blessing, that that particular noose will at least be gone (there is still Jake and Tom taking around $2m between them).

In some ways we will miss him next year because he's been the teams mainstay for 14 years now. However, in the words of the late great Freddy of Queen ... But life still goes on.

Manly will go on, DCE or not.

 

[HoldenV8]

Yes, our problems are multiple;
1. Ridiculously out of balance salary cap, which would be ok if not for 2.
2. Injury prone superstar.
3. A captain who wants to leave which would be ok if not for 4.
4. Heir apparent captain loves the club but appears no longer suited to the modern game.
5. A coach who lacks footy smarts, which would be ok if not for 6.
6. No football manager (as far as I can tell) ala Gus Gould.
7. Demographics (Northern Beaches too expensive to live) therefore underweight local juniors, which would be ok if not for 8.
8. Owner is not a gazzillionaire and therefore can’t buy us a premiership
9. Fans who overreact to a single defeat
10. Trumps tariffs

I'm as left wing as the next left winger, but even I LOL'd @ #10

Can't even blame him for DCE

 

[XV-1]

Newcastle lost half their bench in the first minute and defended bravely with no ball in the first half, the Dogs basically had the game won through circumstance.

Yesterday was just one example. They have had a bunch of Neville's playing in the forwards for the last two years after Ciraldo got rid of some forwards that did not buy into "the gameplan"

What has Spoony done? Got rid of Keppie and replaced with Waddell and Brown - give me a break.
Our forwards have gone backwards since Seibold has taken over.

 

[Budgie]

Yesterday was just one example. They have had a bunch of Neville's playing in the forwards for the last two years after Ciraldo got rid of some forwards that did not buy into "the gameplan"

What has Spoony done? Got rid of Keppie and replaced with Waddell and Brown - give me a break.
Our forwards have gone backwards since Seibold has taken over.

Throw your toys out of the cot all you want but you can't have Ciraldo or Bellyache or Bennett or Cleary.

We were beaten by the best team in the competition without our best back and prop.

And if you're looking for the root of any decay at Manly, look no further than the owner.

 

[Denno]

Losing by that amount and he was all smiles after the game the Captain??? Suggests he doesn't G A F !!!!

 

[robbiea]

Pr1ck better not backflip

 

[LeonardCohen]

And also signed some 10 or 11 players from the western pathways program who:

-passed away (RIP Keith Titmuss)
-stabbed a bloke after we let Api go to invest in him (Manase)
-never got his fitness up to scratch & so was constantly injured (Schuster)

While the others never really hit any great heights & have all (apart from Olakau’atu & Saab) been moved on & haven’t proven to be stars of the game.

I think there was too much transition within our club’s systems plus the top heavy salary cap of DCE, Turbo & Burbo that has created the situation we find ourselves in today - a starstudded backline with an ordinary pack of forwards who are either out injured or only show fire & hunger occasionally.

I’m hoping with DCE going that it’s the end of Manly being hamstrung by 3 of our players taking up such a large chunk of our cap & that we can go to market & buy a good prop or two, so we can regain balance across our squad.

Lodge & TKO are in the twilight of their careers, Paseka’s hot & cold (& injured), Sipley is also hot & cold & doesn’t appear to be a natural leader & won’t ever take control of our pack IMO.

Just my opinion and not an attack but it’s been stated many times on the forum that DCE’s contract has inhibited balance across the squad and I just don’t see how. Almost every club in the NRL have 2-3 players up around a million bucks. It’s not always a halfback but it’s par for the course in the game. Even a side like the Titans have Tino and Fafita on big deals.

we can also infer that 750k was set aside for a half back next year. Even if we land a guy like Fogerty for best case scenario (500k), that’s 250k spare. That’s not revolutionising our roster.

We’ve got guys on decent money that aren’t returning the investment. That’s the problem, not DCE’s contract.

 

[Pete W]

Since 1951 when we made our first GF, this is the longest drought the club has ever gone through in terms of playing in a premiership decider. 11 years since we've had a chance of taking home the chocolates, and you can most likely say it'll be 12 years by the end of this season.

Over that time, coaches have come and gone. CEO's have come and gone. Forwards have come and gone. Backs have come and gone. But there has been one constant during that time. Let's see what happens when that constant is gone. I'm willing to bet we won't go another 10 years without a GF appearance.

I've said it before, but the beginning of DCE was the end of Manly.

He single-handedly ripped apart a generational team of champions, hamstrung our salary cap, and created a vacuous team culture that reflected his own character, dominating any coach or system that could instill authority over him and the team. He has always been a self-serving player, only concerned with his individual KPIs, whilst all the while being a hopeless game manager, and an erratic right edge defender. Anyone that uses the words 'club legend', or compare him to recent great captains who have actually inspired their teams like Jaime Lyon, Cameron Smith, Paul Gallen, Boyd Cordner, Sam Burgess, Jonathan Thurston, Nathan Cleary are kidding themselves. Despite the excuses, DCE has played with quality Manly teams, and he has failed the club on many levels. And the reason he has stayed injury free has a lot more to do with self-preservation than anything else - he will avoid contact at all costs, even to the detriment of an attacking play - see headless chook mode. When has anyone ever seen him take a tough carry for his team?

Him finally leaving us is a long overdue blessing for the club