A club with the reputation that they were the privileged, coming from the more affluent north shore of Sydney. The nickname the Silvertails was applied to them, which came from that reputation. The fact that the players at Manly were generally very working class in background didn't matter. It led to some ugly matches between Manly and the Western Suburbs Magpies, where the term originated.
Manly wasn't looking too flash in the early 20th century. At the time the team was called the Northern Eagles, due to a forced amalgamation of the North Sydney Bears and the Manly club from 2000 to 2002. It seemed to affect results adversely. I've kept the results as Manly's because they were the main part of the joint venture.
The coach at the time was Peter Sharp, from 1999 until 2003 in total. After he resigned, in came Des Hasler, a stalwart of the club as a player. He had success as the team built momentum up until 2007 and 2008. It slipped before a strong performance in 2011, culminating in a win at the grand final.
He left with some ill-feeling and in came another ex-player of note Geoff Toovey. They had three good years under him but a poor 2015 saw him shown the door. His replacement was Trent Barrett who had a modest run and was replaced by Des Hasler, back for another stint at the job.
This time around the success hasn't been as it was during his previous tenure. 2021 was good though, they finished higher than I expected. Things turned downward after that and now Anthony Seibold has the job to do and made useful progress in 2024. Keeping their game breaker Tom Trbojevic on the field will help.
No comments:
Post a Comment