Anthony Seibold’s NRL move to Manly may be as difficult as his time at Brisbane

In 2018 he was named Dally M Coach of the Year for delivering the Rabbitohs to the preliminary finals, but in two sorry seasons at Brisbane he fell well short of the lofty expectations placed on him.

Now, in similar circumstances, he can try again.

Twice now he has walked into a job in controversial circumstances, in the midst of an ugly war between administration and his predecessor.

But to not only accept the Sea Eagles gig, but to actually succeed in it, he needs to be sure he’s learned some lessons.

“I was challenged and struggled because I was embarrassed by failing up there,” Seibold told Fox Sports earlier this year, shortly after returning from assisting Eddie Jones with the England national rugby side.

“There’s so many things that went down that I look back on and reflect on.

“I regret leaving South Sydney.

“I made a business decision. I didn’t make a decision with my heart, I made a decision with my head and it went pear shaped.

“There’s a lot of reasons for that, but I’ve got to hold my hand up because, ultimately, I’m the main reason it went pear shaped.

“I regret some things about leaving South Sydney, I would do some things differently.

“I would do some things differently, I would do some things the same at the Broncos.”

If he returns to rugby league as a head coach his heart needs to be in it, because taking on the Sea Eagles job after the mess they’ve made is no smart business decision.

An educated man like Seibold couldn’t have had a better training ground than a dark two years at the Broncos.

But this time, he’s going to need more support from fans, old boys and the club than he ever had at Brisbane to avoid it ending the same way.

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Although he’s yet to be confirmed as Manly’s new coach, the way in which he will likely take over the job from favoured Manly son Des Hasler bears more than a passing resemblance to Wayne Bennett’s messy exit from the Broncos at the end of 2018.

In that instance, Bennett also didn’t want to leave, but was being forced out by club powerbrokers who felt he had peaked, leading to an untenable dynamic between bosses and coach.

That Hasler has been trying so hard to hold onto his job when it’s obvious owner Scott Penn and CEO Tony Mestrov wanted him gone is entirely reminiscent of the way Bennett fought to see out his deal at the Broncos too, eventually forcing the club to sack him to see him out.

Broncos fans were either dirty on how their premiership-winning coach was treated or ready for a change under Seibold, but either way it all turned quickly when the results didn’t flow as expected.

Granted, the ex-Souths coach had to deal with backstabbing by old boys who were loyal to Bennett, and also to Kevin Walters who was overlooked for the job. He didn’t handle it well in the media, and in his two disastrous years in charge of the Broncos it felt like he was on a hiding to nothing to deliver a premiership as promised.

He was unceremoniously sacked.

The way Hasler has been knifed three years after returning to the club is equally sad and equally dangerous for Seibold.

Back in October of 2018, Manly bosses met with fans to find a way out of the calamitous Trent Barrett era. The overwhelming response was that they ideally wanted a “Manly man” in charge, and Penn said as much in the press conference announcing Hasler’s signing.

It’s what tipped them into offering Hasler a contract in the first place.

Seibold is going to have to show quickly that in his one-season at the club as assistant to Barrett, he learned the fabric of the Sea Eagles, that he understands the different factions and how to play the political game on the Northern Beaches.

He lives on the insular peninsula with his family, and he’s going to have to lean into that too, if fans are going to buy what the club is selling them – that he’s a Manly man.

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In a 2018 piece for The Athletes Voice, Seibold revealed the four questions he asked himself before accepting the job at South Sydney.

“Some might call them KPIs but, to me, they were the culmination of four decades of learning – the pillars to what I thought would make a successful footy club,” he wrote.

“Could I deliver a competitive performance?

“Could I build effective relationships among the players and staff? 

“Could I develop and improve players and track that?

“And, finally, could I put into place a successful game model? 

“To this day, these are the factors I judge myself on. I think about them all the time.”

It’s fair to wonder if the same four questions are going through his mind on the verge of joining the Sea Eagles from next season.

As far as competitive performance goes, a lot will hinge on whether he can unite the playing group – some of whom will have been extremely loyal to Hasler. The 2022 season has been absolutely horrific for team morale, from injuries to the Pride jersey saga to being in finals contention and then crashing out in 11th place. Players are angry and disappointed with how it all turned out and rightly so.

Seibold will have his work cut out for him there. The rest of it will come down to whether or not Tom Trbojevic’s body holds up for an entire season. Hasler wasn’t as lucky at any point over the past four years.

Uniting the playing group will be equally as important to building effective relationships – something Geoff Toovey struggled to do in the first post-Hasler era.

He’ll need to show strong leadership for a club in crisis, but not too strong that it threatens the powerbrokers.

A crew of young players are prime for development at Manly, most notably Josh Schuster’s transition into the halves alongside Daly Cherry-Evans now that Kieran Foran has moved on. The rest of the squad, bar a few rising stars looking to break into the first grade side, are ready to win a title, according to the club.

After all of this, the only successful game model he can create is a winning one.

Seibold lost five of his first six games at the Broncos in 2018 and he’ll need to be a lot quicker off the mark if Manly fans are going to embrace him.

They lost their first four games of 2021 and were almost ready to riot.

Appease the fans, manage the crisis and maybe, just maybe, Seibold has a chance to show rugby league what he’s made of four years after teasing it.