Manly to keep Hasler on tighter leash than Bulldogs

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This was published 5 years ago

Manly to keep Hasler on tighter leash than Bulldogs

By Chris Barrett

Des Hasler was holidaying in Croatia three weeks ago when the phone rang. It was Scott Penn, the Manly owner and chairman.

The name was not one that had flashed up regularly on his screen since the pair fell out badly seven years ago. Hasler had threatened legal action over his bitter exit from the club in 2011, and an angry Penn had encouraged him to “bring it on”.

“We should talk,” Penn told him.

Until just days before that conversation, Hasler had barely been in the picture to coach Manly again. Michael Maguire and Sea Eagles assistant John Cartwright were considered most likely to take over from Trent Barrett, the club’s coach for the past three seasons waging his own war against the Manly hierarchy.

The tipping point, according to Penn, was a forum at Manly Leagues Club held earlier this month when the message from about 200 members was that they wanted a ‘Manly person’ back in charge.

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Around that time Maguire also pulled out of contention, unable to agree to terms with the club. Cartwright and Brisbane’s Jason Demetriou were also still in the race but on a subsequent call from Penn to Hasler in Europe, the return of the two-time premiership-winning coach on a three-year contract was sealed.

It is a re-marriage of convenience. Manly were desperate to restore their image and win back fans; Hasler was desperate to return to the coaching ranks.

“We talked about what had transpired [in 2011] and decided to just put it to bed,” Penn said. “You can’t sugarcoat it and say that it wasn’t [difficult]. But this is about the club and where we need to be.”

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Hasler is back from the NRL coaching wilderness, 13 months after he was sacked by Canterbury.

He bounded into Manly’s headquarters at North Narrabeen on Monday with questions still to be answered about his part in the salary cap mess at the Bulldogs. So he set about answering them, taking cues from prepared notes when the query about the Canterbury fiasco inevitably arrived.

The central theme of his defence was that he knew what he was doing at Belmore and would have resolved the situation there had he not been shown the door.

He's back: Des Hasler is unveiled as Manly's new head coach on Monday.

He's back: Des Hasler is unveiled as Manly's new head coach on Monday.Credit: Christopher Pearce

“I’ve always had a pretty robust philosophy towards the best way to manage the cap,” Hasler said.

“I guess with an incumbent coach it’s always that coach’s priority to look at that list and to manage that list and properly carve out a way or craft a way going forward. But I think that exercise shouldn’t be about laying the blame. Players’ values are very subjective, it’s got to fit in the with coach’s plan at that particular time.

“I think it’s naive to suggest that one salary cap management plan is another’s misery. I’ve always had a plan, I’ve always been committed to executing that plan going into my time at the Dogs and also in my time here prior at Manly. Had I been retained [at Canterbury] ... I would have been committed to seeing those plans through.”

As for the notorious back-ended deals that contributed to Canterbury’s malaise, Hasler offered this:
“The notion of back-ended deals as reported, I think, is simplistic, and generally wrong. I just don’t think it has a regard for many, many factors that come into managing and are relevant to list management.

'That's the end of the lecture': Hasler was reluctant to open up on his management of the salary cap at Canterbury.

'That's the end of the lecture': Hasler was reluctant to open up on his management of the salary cap at Canterbury.Credit: AAP

“And that’s the end of the lecture today.”

Hasler arrives at Manly with the club having endured their own salary cap-induced nightmare in a year in which they finished 15th. They were fined $750,000 and had $330,000 taken off their salary cap for both the 2018 and 2019 seasons as a result of an NRL investigation into their spending on players. Last month it was announced that they had lost their appeal against the sanctions.

If there is a view within the league cognoscenti that Hasler was given too much power at Canterbury then that won’t be the case at Manly, their officials insist.

It is his show as head coach, but when it comes to the comings and goings of players it will be a group effort, according to the chairman.

“The fact is that every club now is governed by more stringent rules around corporate governance and cap management,” Penn said.

“There is really strong guidelines in terms of you need a [recruitment] committee, there needs to be multiple finance people on that committee, the CEO. It’s not absolutely ruled with an iron first by anyone.”

Penn believes lucrative back-ended deals, used to entice star players to a club or keep them there with the big paydays coming later in the life of the contract, are rare now.

“I think it’s a different era. Talk to [player] managers. Managers want the cash today, so the day of a back-ended deal is kind of old news to a degree. Plus the NRL have clamped down a lot of them.”

As for Manly’s current squad, Penn added: “We’ve spoken at length about where we’re at. [Hasler] has seen the roster. We had five internationals playing in the last two weeks and we’ve had a couple who’ve been injured. We’re spoilt for choice.”

The goal for Manly is to finish in the top four every year. That might seem unlikely right now, but then again so did a reunion with one of their favourite sons, after all that had gone on.

As Hasler put it on Monday: “You learn in rugby league very soon that all things are possible.”

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