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Manly hit bottom but sacking Toovey isn’t the answer

Kieran Foran will play for the Eels next season. Photo: Getty

Kieran Foran will play for the Eels next season. Photo: Getty

For so long the NRL’s standard-bearer, Manly has reacted to a disastrous 2015 by reportedly telling 14 players and coach Geoff Toovey their services are not required beyond this season.

Manly has qualified for the finals in each of the previous 10 seasons – the best current streak in the NRL – including six top-four finishes, four Grand Finals and two premierships since 2007.

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Under Toovey, the Sea Eagles have overcome several seasons of boardroom debacles, rumours of disharmony in the playing group and the departure of several key personnel to remain among the competition’s heavyweights, despite pessimistic predictions from the experts.

Kieran Foran will play for the Eels next season. Photo: Getty

Kieran Foran will play for the Eels next season. Photo: Getty

But Manly has rarely tolerated failure, and a dismal start to the season virtually put the kybosh on its chances of maintaining that finals streak by the halfway mark of the season.

The radical overhaul also appears to be, in part, due to an appalling two seasons on the recruitment and retention front.

Four of the ‘unwanted 14′ were brought to the club this year, while a number of popular, representative-quality stalwarts were controversially allowed to leave.

The early-season announcements that its marquee halves would be heading elsewhere at the end of the year – Daly-Cherry-Evans to Gold Coast and Kieran Foran to Parramatta – plunged the club into crisis.

The Sea Eagles’ fortunes seemed to be on an upward swing after Cherry-Evans sensationally reneged on a move to the Titans to re-sign with Manly at the start of June.

Three wins from four matches sparked predictions of a late Manly charge to the finals.

But a comprehensive 30-12 loss at the hands of North Queensland on Monday all but ended those hopes.

The club’s alarming decline began with the protracted uncertainty over the future of its superstar halves pairing and was swiftly followed by a backline injury crisis.

No forward thinking

But it’s the Sea Eagles’ severely weakened forward pack that has been at the root of their flailing fortunes this season.

Luke Burgess has failed to have much of an impact. Photo: Getty

Luke Burgess has failed to have much of an impact. Photo: Getty

Veteran club-men Anthony Watmough, Glenn Stewart and Jason King all left at the end of 2014 – on top of the departure of Brent Kite, George Rose and David Gower after the previous year’s Grand Final.

The only notable replacements were enigmatic journeymen Willie Mason and Feleti Mateo, and unwanted Rabbitoh Luke Burgess.

All three recruits have failed to make an impact, and Manly is now a shadow of the much-feared and unwaveringly consistent outfit we’d become accustomed to.

On the strength of this year’s performances, the cleanout is justified and necessary, although Matt Ballin, Justin Horo and Josh Starling have given fine service to the club and will understandably feel slighted.

Ironman hooker Ballin’s axing will rankle with many Sea Eagles supporters – he has played 212 games for the club, including two Grand Final triumphs, and was re-signed for another two years earlier this season.

Some sort of purge was always on the cards.

Cherry-Evans back-flipped on his Titans deal to sign a ‘lifetime’ contract with the Sea Eagles believed to be in the vicinity of $10 million, and the club acquired Test forwards Nate Myles and Lewis Brown, plus Grand Final-winning hooker Apisai Koroisau for 2016.

But with limited talent still available on the open market, the extensive roster revamp could leave the club lacking in depth.

Meanwhile, the fact five of the players are still under contract will have a significant impact on Manly’s salary cap and limit their prospects of filling those gaps.

Toovey’s not to blame

The impending sacking of Toovey is far more difficult to rationalise.

Is Trent Barrett the man to turn Manly's fortunes around? Photo: Getty

Is Trent Barrett the man to turn Manly’s fortunes around? Photo: Getty

Despite a lean campaign this year, he still boasts a career winning strike-rate of 57 percent and steered the Sea Eagles to a top-four finish in each of his first three seasons at the helm.

Given Toovey’s stint has frequently been disrupted by in-fighting and instability at board level, the success he has managed has been quite remarkable.

Parramatta can attest to the difficulty in getting results on the field when the front office is a shambles.

Manly’s 1996 premiership-winning captain and a long-time assistant to Des Hasler, Toovey has unequivocally emerged from his predecessor’s shadow and proven himself as a quality coach.

It has been rumoured that Manly will offer the club legend an administrative post, but that would be a waste of his considerable talents.

Even more baffling is the identity of his strongly-tipped replacement – Trent Barrett.

Although highly rated, the extent of the 37-year-old’s coaching experience is two years in charge of Country Origin and a couple of seasons as an assistant to Ivan Cleary at Penrith.

Manly has only hired two ‘outsiders’ – coaches who did not previously play for the club – in the past 50 years, wily mentors Graham Lowe and Peter Sharp.

Pitching a rookie like Barrett into the head role with one of the highest-profile clubs in the NRL is a major policy shift and won’t do any favours for either party.

On the plus side, the Sea Eagles have retained their crack backline (with the exception of Foran) and await the arrival of a couple of blue-chip recruits, as well as having cut away some of the deadwood.

But in jettisoning Toovey, they may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and shackled their chances of a 2016 revival.

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