Campo’s Corner: The rise and return of Manly’s Des Hasler
The Des Hasler comeback, Cronulla’s struggles, what to do with Josh Reynolds and the best Golden Hombre week of the year - it’s all in this week’s edition of Campo’s Corner.
Nick Campton, The Daily Telegraph
Subscriber only
|
July 24, 2019
One of the marks of a great coach is the things they find in players. Sometimes it’s things the player themselves didn’t even know were there.
That’s what Des Hasler has managed to do at Manly. He does have some out and out stars – like the Trbojevic brothers, Daly Cherry-Evans and Martin Taupau – but the Sea Eagles have had those players for some time without much success.
What makes Hasler’s Sea Eagles different to the Trent Barrett model, or even the final few Geoff Toovey years, is Hasler’s ability to get more out of the rest, to fill the gaps between the stars with players who, with all due respect, have never played like this under any other coach.
Hasler is doing right under the radar. AAP Image/Martin Hunter.
Take Ruben Garrick for example, who joined this year from the Dragons on a one-year deal. Or Moses Suli, who, for all his talent, seems perpetually on the verge of washing out of rugby league entirely. Or the reborn Curtis Sironen, who is finally becoming the player he was always promised to be. It’s reminiscent of players like Michael Robertson and Glen Hall, George Rose and Heath L’estrange, Kris Keating and Corey Payne, players who Hasler helped take to a level that maybe not even the players thought was possible.
That’s how premierships are won – you need stars, of course, but stars alone can’t carry a team. The spaces between the stars are where the difference is made and where the true winning is done.
It’s not as though Hasler waved a magic wand and transformed base metal into gold – the aforementioned players have always been talented and the likes of Cade Cust, Corey Waddell and Manase Fainu could have been first graders at any number of clubs. Fainu in particular is fast proving himself to be a special talent – Apisai Koroisau is a fine player in his own right but Manly are right to back Fainu, who has been exemplary since taking over the starting role three weeks ago.
The Fainu-Koroisau dynamic is proof of another impressive factor in Hasler’s second stint with the Sea Eagles – this is still very much a team in flux. Challenging for the premiership this season might be a bit beyond them this season but of the teams outside the top four they’re clearly the most capable and the most dangerous.
Manly are a real chance of making the top four. AAP Image/Brendon Thorne.
If some results go their way – particularly their match with Canberra in a few weeks’ time – finishing in the top four themselves isn’t beyond them.
But in true Hasler style the man himself, if not his team, is sneaking under the radar like a stealth bomber.
Must-see new two-part crime investigation exposing the double life of corrupt ‘Lawyer X’. Watch on Sky News
There have been precious few press conference theatrics, like the time he called referees Voldemort’s. He hasn’t been handing out apples to reporters at training, like he did at his infamous dawn pressers at Canterbury.
In fact, those Canterbury years now seem like somebody else’s life – Hasler could well be repeating the model of his early years at Manly, when the Sea Eagles finished 13th, eighth, sixth, runners up and premiers in his first five seasons - just skipping the first step because the raw materials were already there.
In my season preview I questioned if Hasler was still the coach who went to five grand finals in eight years from 2007 to 2014.
Hasler had been in charge of some stirring attacking units in his time, even at Canterbury – the 2012 Bulldogs were as brilliant and influential an attacking side has ever been and as late as 2015 Hasler’s side were fifth in points scored but those last few times at the Bulldogs were so mind-numbingly dull, tough and hardy to be sure but incapable of any imagination or attacking zeal.
Hasler’s last Bulldogs team were historically poor in attack. Photo by Matt King/Getty Images.
They had their forward pack and their forwards were a bunch of headcrackers, but they were cavemen without fire. In 2017, Hasler’s last year with the Bulldogs, they didn’t score more than 24 points in a match 21 weeks in a row.
Their 15 points a game was not only the worst in the league that year, it was the fifth worst average of any team this century.
The club had a late flurry after the players all but discarded Hasler’s tactics and put up 82 points in their final three matches – before that they averaged 13.14 points a game, and if they’d stuck with that their total of 315 would have only been ten points more than the one-win Knights of 2016 and 30 more than the three-win Wests Magpies of 1999.
That is not company one wishes to keep in any statistic. Even with that late run they were still the sixth worst attacking team of the century.
Their effort could not be doubted, as they managed to scrape an 11th placed finish despite being as exciting to watch as a blank piece of paper, or a television that has been switched off.
.
Perhaps it was a style forced upon him by the players at his disposal, but Hasler was the one who chose those players – he had complete control at Canterbury and by the end the club had sunk into a salary cap and roster nightmare that could take years to escape.
It’s hard to believe the same man is in charge of Manly, who are fifth in points scored, fourth in tries, first in line breaks and first in offloads.
Their attack is high-tempo and relentless and when all the passes stick they simply overwhelm their opponents with challenge after challenge but it always feels controlled and aimed. There is none of the frenzy that so often defines offload-heavy teams – theirs is a controlled explosion.
He’s also taken them from dead last defensively to fifth in tries conceded, a transformation just as remarkable.
Srionen is one of several Sea Eagles playing the best football of their careers. AAP Image/Dave Hunt.
This is without Tom Trbojevic, their best attacking player, only managing six matches due to injuries and Origin, as well as Daly Cherry-Evans missing time with an ankle problem and his halves partner seemingly changing week to week.
The better times are ahead for Manly, and I’m not taking about this September, I’m talking about the seasons to come. Hasler might be rugby league’s mad scientist but there is no way to quantify what he brings out in people, no numbers or statistic that can measure the improvement and zeal of his rejuvenated squad. Manly might not beat their old rivals Melbourne this weekend and they may not win the title this year but Hasler is building a second empire on the northern beaches and proving beyond doubt the truly great coaches are never really done.
The Des Hasler comeback, Cronulla’s struggles, what to do with Josh Reynolds and the best Golden Hombre week of the year - it’s all in this week’s edition of Campo’s Corner.
Nick Campton, The Daily Telegraph
Subscriber only
|
July 24, 2019
One of the marks of a great coach is the things they find in players. Sometimes it’s things the player themselves didn’t even know were there.
That’s what Des Hasler has managed to do at Manly. He does have some out and out stars – like the Trbojevic brothers, Daly Cherry-Evans and Martin Taupau – but the Sea Eagles have had those players for some time without much success.
What makes Hasler’s Sea Eagles different to the Trent Barrett model, or even the final few Geoff Toovey years, is Hasler’s ability to get more out of the rest, to fill the gaps between the stars with players who, with all due respect, have never played like this under any other coach.
Hasler is doing right under the radar. AAP Image/Martin Hunter.
Take Ruben Garrick for example, who joined this year from the Dragons on a one-year deal. Or Moses Suli, who, for all his talent, seems perpetually on the verge of washing out of rugby league entirely. Or the reborn Curtis Sironen, who is finally becoming the player he was always promised to be. It’s reminiscent of players like Michael Robertson and Glen Hall, George Rose and Heath L’estrange, Kris Keating and Corey Payne, players who Hasler helped take to a level that maybe not even the players thought was possible.
That’s how premierships are won – you need stars, of course, but stars alone can’t carry a team. The spaces between the stars are where the difference is made and where the true winning is done.
It’s not as though Hasler waved a magic wand and transformed base metal into gold – the aforementioned players have always been talented and the likes of Cade Cust, Corey Waddell and Manase Fainu could have been first graders at any number of clubs. Fainu in particular is fast proving himself to be a special talent – Apisai Koroisau is a fine player in his own right but Manly are right to back Fainu, who has been exemplary since taking over the starting role three weeks ago.
The Fainu-Koroisau dynamic is proof of another impressive factor in Hasler’s second stint with the Sea Eagles – this is still very much a team in flux. Challenging for the premiership this season might be a bit beyond them this season but of the teams outside the top four they’re clearly the most capable and the most dangerous.
Manly are a real chance of making the top four. AAP Image/Brendon Thorne.
If some results go their way – particularly their match with Canberra in a few weeks’ time – finishing in the top four themselves isn’t beyond them.
But in true Hasler style the man himself, if not his team, is sneaking under the radar like a stealth bomber.
Must-see new two-part crime investigation exposing the double life of corrupt ‘Lawyer X’. Watch on Sky News
There have been precious few press conference theatrics, like the time he called referees Voldemort’s. He hasn’t been handing out apples to reporters at training, like he did at his infamous dawn pressers at Canterbury.
In fact, those Canterbury years now seem like somebody else’s life – Hasler could well be repeating the model of his early years at Manly, when the Sea Eagles finished 13th, eighth, sixth, runners up and premiers in his first five seasons - just skipping the first step because the raw materials were already there.
In my season preview I questioned if Hasler was still the coach who went to five grand finals in eight years from 2007 to 2014.
Hasler had been in charge of some stirring attacking units in his time, even at Canterbury – the 2012 Bulldogs were as brilliant and influential an attacking side has ever been and as late as 2015 Hasler’s side were fifth in points scored but those last few times at the Bulldogs were so mind-numbingly dull, tough and hardy to be sure but incapable of any imagination or attacking zeal.
Hasler’s last Bulldogs team were historically poor in attack. Photo by Matt King/Getty Images.
They had their forward pack and their forwards were a bunch of headcrackers, but they were cavemen without fire. In 2017, Hasler’s last year with the Bulldogs, they didn’t score more than 24 points in a match 21 weeks in a row.
Their 15 points a game was not only the worst in the league that year, it was the fifth worst average of any team this century.
The club had a late flurry after the players all but discarded Hasler’s tactics and put up 82 points in their final three matches – before that they averaged 13.14 points a game, and if they’d stuck with that their total of 315 would have only been ten points more than the one-win Knights of 2016 and 30 more than the three-win Wests Magpies of 1999.
That is not company one wishes to keep in any statistic. Even with that late run they were still the sixth worst attacking team of the century.
Their effort could not be doubted, as they managed to scrape an 11th placed finish despite being as exciting to watch as a blank piece of paper, or a television that has been switched off.
.
Perhaps it was a style forced upon him by the players at his disposal, but Hasler was the one who chose those players – he had complete control at Canterbury and by the end the club had sunk into a salary cap and roster nightmare that could take years to escape.
It’s hard to believe the same man is in charge of Manly, who are fifth in points scored, fourth in tries, first in line breaks and first in offloads.
Their attack is high-tempo and relentless and when all the passes stick they simply overwhelm their opponents with challenge after challenge but it always feels controlled and aimed. There is none of the frenzy that so often defines offload-heavy teams – theirs is a controlled explosion.
He’s also taken them from dead last defensively to fifth in tries conceded, a transformation just as remarkable.
Srionen is one of several Sea Eagles playing the best football of their careers. AAP Image/Dave Hunt.
This is without Tom Trbojevic, their best attacking player, only managing six matches due to injuries and Origin, as well as Daly Cherry-Evans missing time with an ankle problem and his halves partner seemingly changing week to week.
The better times are ahead for Manly, and I’m not taking about this September, I’m talking about the seasons to come. Hasler might be rugby league’s mad scientist but there is no way to quantify what he brings out in people, no numbers or statistic that can measure the improvement and zeal of his rejuvenated squad. Manly might not beat their old rivals Melbourne this weekend and they may not win the title this year but Hasler is building a second empire on the northern beaches and proving beyond doubt the truly great coaches are never really done.
