Tough school: The Geoff Toovey way

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ManlyBacker

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Give no quarter. Never take a backward step. When others write you off, rise to a whole new level. That's the Manly way. And it's the only way coach Geoff Toovey knows.

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Give no quarter. Never take a backward step. When others write you off, rise to a whole new level. That's the Manly way. And it's the only way coach Geoff Toovey knows.


Geoff Toovey le
epp-toovey.jpg
ans back on the wire fence of the tunnel at Brookvale Oval.

This weather-beaten joint is a step back in time, and that is where Toovey is looking right now.

The Big League program from July 28, 1993, features a cover shot of the 24-year-old Manly halfback of the day. He has flowing blond hair, and the face of a choirboy. At 168 centimetres, he's as tall as one. The coverline declares: ''Toovey: Manly's pitbull terrier''.

Two decades later, the pitbull looks like one has attacked him. What happened, Tooves?

''Life,'' he says laughing. ''The life.''

Toovey's chewed-up features can't be ascribed to life as much as how he played the game, as anyone who witnessed his career for Manly, NSW and Australia knows.

Cliffy Lyons, a mesmerising playmaker out of a different mould than Toovey, remembers the day in 1988 when the 19-year-old pitbull played alongside him against the touring Great Britain team.

It was Toovey's second game in the first grade team and his opponents thought he would be easy roadkill.
Toovey

''Those big Pommy forwards thought he was too small and he wouldn't do much to them - their minds soon changed,'' Lyons recalls. ''His technique was perfect: up and under the ribcage, driving them back. Nobody punched above their weight more than Tooves.''

For much of their respective careers, Toovey and referee Bill Harrigan went to war with each other. When Harrigan speaks at functions, the question that often comes from the floor is who was the biggest pain the arse?

''Geoff Toovey,'' he will tell them, before offering this rider: ''But he was, pound for pound, the toughest footballer I ever refereed.''

Toovey dismisses any talk about his hardness.

''I just did my best,'' he says. ''I didn't have the skills of a Brad Fittler or Andrew Johns. I didn't have the speed of some of the players out there. Or the size. I had to make it up somewhere.''

The simplistic view ahead of Sunday night's grand final against the Roosters is Toovey, 44, is infusing this Manly team with the same relentless, unyielding style of play.

The truth of it is he's an avatar of those who have occupied the position in the past.

Sure, Toovey is a different personality to Des Hasler, who is different to Bob Fulton, who is different to Frank Stanton. But they all certainly gave their sidethe same personality, and that was about winning at any cost.

Ask him if toughness is in the DNA of the club, and Toovey responds with this: ''That's right, it is. It's hard to create that character around a club. If you're a new club, that's hard to establish. It's something that's grown and developed over years and years. And once it's there, it's very hard to lose it. But you also have to make the most of it … Does that make any sense?''

Sort of, but we'll get to that later.

What's important to make clear from the start is that for every plaudit thrown at other coaches - Toovey wasn't so much as nominated for the Dally M as Coach of the Year - there can be no disputing what ''the angry little ant'' has achieved since taking over from Hasler in acrimonious circumstances a week after the Sea Eagles won the premiership two years ago.

''Tooves held this club together,'' back-rower Anthony Watmough says. ''He's been the glue that kept this club together. We were expected to fall apart and then we came within one game of the grand final last year … You see his passion in the press conferences. He's an angry little ant. You don't want to get him offside or his head might explode.''

The progression from pitbull to angry little ant during his career came when Toovey moved into dummy half, throwing his hands in the air, pleading with the referee for a penalty, with every tackle. Every tackle.

The television cameras often catch him doing it from behind the glass of the coach's box.

''No! I wasn't always at the ref,'' he says, butting in, when you conjure memories of his playing days. ''I was only at the ref when he was wrong.''

Harrigan remembers it differently. He remembers a match when Toovey detonated upon hearing the shrill of the referee's whistle at a scrum.

''Tooves,'' Harrigan said. ''You got the penalty.''

''Save that spray for next time then,'' Toovey shot back.

Harrigan also recalls a lineage of Manly captains and players before Toovey - Paul Vautin, Hasler, Lyons - taking the field for the second half and complaining about a lopsided penalty count.

''They always said it was 11-3 against them,'' Harrigan says. ''One day I did know what it was. I said to Tooves, 'It's 6-7 your way'. He said, 'That didn't work, did it?'''

Sneaking under the referee's skin was a signature directive handed from the coach, Fulton.

''No, no … well, he didn't discourage it,'' Toovey says. ''As I said, there was no use being silly about things, but if you have a legitimate point you should be able to make a legitimate point.''

It's relevant to raise this now, because history is repeating.

Last year, when Harrigan was referees boss, he would spend an hour on the phone with then-Wests Tigers coach Tim Sheens, who would methodically strangle the conversation with logic.

Toovey would call, drop several expletives, and end it in minutes.

His infamous rant after his side's loss to South Sydney in August has become the punchline of the season, repeated by young fans and his own players.

That's ridiculous! There needs to be an investigation!

''Yes, yes, it's very funny,'' says Toovey. ''I get ridiculed about it all the time. I wish things wouldn't turn out that way but that's what football's about. It's about drama, excitement, people getting upset and laughing about it.''

At the mere mention of this, however, the anger rises within the angry little ant.

''Look, I'm very upset, especially after the events that happened since that,'' he says in oblique reference to North Queensland coach Neil Henry and Johnathan Thurston, who both avoided sanction in the first week of the finals. ''Again, that's out of my hands. I'll leave it to the football public to judge that. I thought, again, what I said wasn't too controversial. I didn't attack anyone's credibility, but that wasn't the way it went.''

Nevertheless, Toovey was fined $10,000 and the club's appeal was also dismissed. The shame of it is that he now censors his comments, fearing any retribution from headquarters.

''I have to,'' he says. ''At this club, we haven't got the resources of other clubs. We can't afford to throw money away. I would never do that. It's a tough game to referee, and to interpret the rules. I understand that. They need help and protection and I am behind that.''

Now seems like the best time to ask: Do you enjoy coaching, angry little ant?

''It's stressful, but I'm a stressful person,'' he says.

So what's the rewarding part?

''The off-season.''

Luckily, for his sake, there's only one game to go.

There are two sayings at Manly that expose the inability of the players to die. They explain why captain Jamie Lyon has played on one leg for the last two finals matches, and why Watmough oozed this in the minutes after they had beaten Souths and qualified for their fourth grand final in seven years: ''They said the tank was empty. They said we didn't have it in us. It shows the character of this team.''

It is built in the pre-season.

The coaching staff will advise the players, ''Bring a torch, because you're going to go to a dark place.''

Assistant coach Brad Arthur worked under the Communist Republic of Craig Bellamy in Melbourne, and when he joined the Sea Eagles late last year he soon realised how dark the players were prepared to go.

Most clubs use tackling suits during the months of wrestling and contact work needed, in searing heat, in preparation for the season.

''I said to the boys at the start that I preferred that they didn't use them,'' Arthur explains. ''They were fine with that. We hardly used them … They're tough bastards. You condition your body for contact. Every time they had the suits off, they ripped in harder than when they had it on.

''That's ingrained in them from the moment they get here. Melbourne has that attitude. Manly has that attitude.''

For the past decade, strength and conditioning coach Donny Singe has been torturing Manly players. He has no truck with getting something wrong, reviewing it, doing it again. He has a simple philosophy: ''Get it right, [insert expletive here].''

Singe has won premierships alongside Hasler with Toovey as assistant, so he is best placed to discuss how the two men differ. ''What both he and Des do, which is the reason for the fundamental success of this club, is that they know how to get the most out of their men,'' he says. ''I'm ex-military. I know about teams, and all about working intensive situations with men.

''Communication and trust. It sounds corny and cliched, but the reality is this: when men trust each other, things get done. When they don't, half of it gets done. Around this place, we trust each other.''

In 1996, the angry little ant captained Manly to a premiership, won an Origin series with NSW, played for Australia and studied to become a chartered accountant. He almost considered snubbing the offer to replace Hasler two years ago because of his 16-year-old daughter, Georgia, who he raised on his own after breaking up with his wife.

''This is also the doting dad who has made his daughter, Georgia, his No.1 priority, hovering over her as she has excelled in sporting and academic life,'' long-time Sea Eagles supporter Wendy Harmer wrote upon his appointment in October 2011. ''With Geoff, Georgia has always come first. Friends come next.''

The issue of being a single dad is sensitive terrain. ''I've got great support,'' Toovey says. ''It would be silly for me to go down that path [of discussing it]. It's a personal issue and I would leave it at that. But I will say the football community is a big family, and if there is any trouble, people rally around. My daughter is old enough now, she's 16.''

In the aftermath of last Friday night's win over Souths, Fulton challenged the dysfunctional Manly board to re-sign Toovey beyond next season.

Toovey and the Sea Eagles are expected to sort out a new deal in the coming months. Then again, they were saying the same thing about Hasler.

''You can tell this Manly team plays like Geoff Toovey did every week himself,'' Fulton said.

Plays like Toovey, but does Toovey coach like Fulton? Some have made the comparison.

''Nobody is like 'Bozo','' Lyons attests. ''Tooves would never mention the cement truck.''

That's a reference to Fulton's timeless remark in 1987 when he hoped Harrigan would be run over by one.

''He's just Tooves,'' Lyons continues. ''No one else's man - although he doesn't have any of that blond hair anymore.''

Andrew Webster http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/tough-school-the-geoff-toovey-way-20131003-2uxgv.html#ixzz2ggw15QGo
 
We are so lucky to have this guy coaching us. It pisses me off when people doubt his ability. Regardless of the result on Sunday this "angry little ant" is what this club is all about.

Love you Tooves.
 
Grand Finals are tough matches to win and the team that comes from Toovey's tough school will win the game !!!
 
Just thought I would bump this one.....!

Tooves is a legend....!!!!! :) So proud he is our coach.....!


Thought I would highlight some extracts...

For much of their respective careers, Toovey and referee Bill Harrigan went to war with each other. When Harrigan speaks at functions, the question that often comes from the floor is who was the biggest pain the arse?

''Geoff Toovey,'' he will tell them, before offering this rider: ''But he was, pound for pound, the toughest footballer I ever refereed.''

and

Ask him if toughness is in the DNA of the club, and Toovey responds with this: ''That's right, it is. It's hard to create that character around a club. If you're a new club, that's hard to establish. It's something that's grown and developed over years and years. And once it's there, it's very hard to lose it. But you also have to make the most of it … Does that make any sense?''

and

''Tooves held this club together,'' back-rower Anthony Watmough says. ''He's been the glue that kept this club together. We were expected to fall apart and then we came within one game of the grand final last year … You see his passion in the press conferences. He's an angry little ant. You don't want to get him offside or his head might explode.'' @:mad:
 

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