BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Another disappointing season, with a 10th-place finish outside of the playoffs.
A star player, marquee and local junior in Tom Trbojevic is reportedly unhappy and looking for an out, maybe to England, in 2027.
The club’s succession plan is in tatters with assistant coach Michael Ennis heading to St George Illawarra, with speculation swirling around the future of head coach Anthony Seibold and a playing group allegedly unhappy with him.
A powerful faction of old boys keen to move Seibold out and install one of their own, two-time grand final winner Matt Ballin.
NSW boss, the 55-year-old Laurie Daley, tapped to act as a ‘mentor’ to 50-year-old Seibold, only for Daley to pass on the role.
Numerous players are rumoured to be headed for medical retirements, and 11 are departing for either other clubs or hanging up their boots. Only two new players signed for next year in Canberra’s Jamal Fogarty and Onitoni Large.
Growing criticism aimed at CEO Tony Mestrov and New York-based chairman Scott Penn.
And then there’s one Daly Cherry-Evans. His protracted exit, the manner of how it all came about, and its immense effect on the club, has cast a pall over the whole season for the maroon and white.
It never should have been this way. A club legend, DCE should have played out his career at Brookie as a celebrated, much-vaunted one-club northern beaches man.
But the Sea Eagles head honchos bungled the negotiations and the ensuing media circus. DCE and his management hardly covered themselves in glory either, with the way the saga played so publicly, so openly.
Manly has a history of club legends leaving on bad terms, like Bob Fulton in the 1970s and Paul Vautin in 1990, both ironically decamping to the Roosters.
The halfback has had more than $10 million out of the club during his career, and let’s not forget that many Manly greats were forced out early in Cherry-Evans’ NRL days because of salary cap issues. DCE famously signed with the Titans, then backflipped because Fulton threw him a long-term, eye-watering $1.2 million a year contract.
It made him one of the highest-paid players in the comp.
Cherry-Evans did deliver on the pitch, and was a match-winner on many occasions for Manly over the past decade. But there was never another grand-final ring, and the cash allocated to DCE has left the Sea Eagles’ salary cap lopsided for some time. The club is trying to balance it better now, away from two stars in Cherry-Evans and Turbo, but it will take some time and surely the halfback’s departure could have been managed more delicately.
Before a Steeden was kicked off in 2025, most pundits tipped Manly to make the top eight. Some had them in the top four. They were even considered as darkhorses for the title.
With a squad including Cherry-Evans, the Trbojevic brothers, Tolatau Kolau, Haumole Olakau’atu, Taniel Paseka, Luke Brooks, Nathan Brown, Reuben Garrick, and not to mention Lehi Hopoate and Jason Saab, on paper they had a team that should have made the finals.
But it’s all gone badly, bitterly, terrible wrong on Pittwater Road.
The Sea Eagles last won a title in 2011. They last made a grand final in 2013. Fourteen years is a long time to wait for a premiership (though not as long as some).
But unless change comes to the insular peninsula, and soon, the wait will roll on and on, and on.