Anthony Seibold is expected to take over as Manly head coach following the sacking of Des Hasler, with a pair of rugby league legends hoping he will first settle his terms with the volatile club.
After weeks of speculation, the Sea Eagles confirmed on Thursday night that Hasler’s contract had been terminated.
It came after a power struggle between Hasler and the club’s senior management, one Cooper Cronk described as “ridiculous”.
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The fallout from the decision to fire Hasler could be ugly with both sides in discussions “to try to reach an amicable solution” financially.
Manly’s best player Tom Trbojevic has also called an emergency meeting with his manager on Friday to discuss his future following the news.
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With Seibold expected to be announced as the new coach by the Sea Eagles, Cronk and Greg Alexander stressed the instability must be resolved before it arrives.
“Obviously there are some issues at Manly so if I’m a new manager I want them cleaned up and fixed,” Cronk said on Fox League’s RLWC Preview Show.
“Seibold comes from a difficult history at the Broncos — do you want to go back to an unstable environment?
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“Seibold can coach, I still believe that, but does he want to join a club that is unstable after what has happened? Or does he come in and say, “These are my terms, put these things in place, clean whatever needs cleaning and then I’ll come in”?
“I can only think that Seibold has told (CEO) Tony Mestrov that,” Alexander added.
“I can only think that Seibold said, ‘I’m not coming until you get this joint right and you get it right across the board.’
Hasler has been under pressure, rightly or wrongly, since the rainbow shirt saga. Manly lost their last seven games after that incident to finish 11th.
Braith Anasta, who said he was “still a bit shocked” by the news, does not believe the shirt drama is solely to blame, but it “exposed massive rifts at the club between the manager and the leadership”.
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Meanwhile, Alexander said this outcome was “inevitable” given the arguments “about power” that had played out over the past month.
But Cronk believes both Hasler and the Sea Eagles’ powerbrokers should have found a solution much earlier because the club is now in the deep end heading into 2023.
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“When you have the heads of your football department and the boss of your club fighting over who is in control, you have zero chance of winning a competition,” he said.
“The losers of this are the players and the supporters.
“The two sides should have met months ago and come up with a contingency plan because the best thing about this is that they have a chance of winning the competition. Now, do they have to clean everything up and start again?
“Manly is Des Hasler and Des Hasler is Manly. They should have sorted that out a long time ago.
“They should have broken bread, come together in the middle and formed a plan for Manly to win a competition, not just fight for power.
“When you want to win a competition, you have to all be going in the same direction.”