Brothers-in-law John Manenti and Chris Malone opposing coaches in Shute Shield grand final

LATE last year, brothers-in-law John Manenti and Chris Malone were sharing their usual weekly beer - they're now battling for Shute Shield supremacy.

Hugh Perrett

IN November last year, brothers-in-law John Manenti and Chris Malone were sharing their usual weekly beer and joking about the prospect of coaching against each other in the 2013 Shute Shield grand final.

It was a long time since Manenti was Malone’s boss at an inner city pub, even longer since the pair were Sydney University teammates, and a nod to the Midas touch of the sisters they married, Kate and Belinda Maras.

Now that the punch-line has been realised, you can expect the next family gathering to be a slightly less amusing affair given one of them will have lost the big dance.

"But the reality is that I would prefer to get to the big show and play him, rather than play him in a knock-out final where one of us would miss out," says Manenti, the coach who has guided Eastwood to their second grand final in three years.

First-year Sydney University head coach Malone adds: "The hardest part will be for our extended family and parents-in-law, knowing one family will be happy and the other pretty down."

Malone, who won the second grade premiership with Uni last year, was then appointed head coach of a club that has won seven of the last eight premierships – the only imperfection when Manenti’s team beat them in extra-time of the 2011 decider.

So 14 years after they first met as Uni players, Manenti and Malone are in charge of rival combatants in the biggest club game of the year.

To say they have inside knowledge of each other’s’ characteristics and traits would be a gross understatement.
Manenti was already playing for Uni when Malone joined the club from the bush via Manly.

"He still had gum leaves on him, he was and always has been a country boy," Manenti said.

Manenti soon hired Malone as a bartender at his pub, where he remembers the country boy annoying his punters by constantly playing Garth Brooks songs on the jukebox.

Manenti, by then married to Kate, watched his employee take a shine to Kate’s sister Belinda when she would visit the HQ Bar in Camperdown.

Malone recalls: "He never slept, and he is still the same now. He would work all night and then be straight up again the next day."

Malone captained Uni to their first premiership in 29 years in 2001, and then went to play in England, with Belinda following him the next year.

When they eventually returned to Australia a decade later - married with children - it was a particularly moving reunion for sisters Kate and Belinda, who now see each other up to five times a week with their children (the Manentis have three sons and a daughter, and the Malones three sons).

Malone was given the second grade Uni coaching gig, after Manenti had won his first Shute Shield premiership as coach of Eastwood in 2011.

When Malone guided the seconds to the title last year, and head coach Todd Louden decided to move to Port Stephens to run a family business, he was given the top job.

"We had the conversation when he was first appointed," Manenti said.

"We had a beer and started joking about the possibility of facing each other in the grand final.

"But we commonly say that it’s not about us, it is about the clubs and the players – we’ve got to this point without too many people knowing we are brothers-in-law so we’ve managed to keep it under wraps."
Malone agrees.

"It is about the players, they are the ones who have worked hard to get here," he says.

"We have been great mates for a long time.

"I am here as a first-year head coach, John has won four minor premierships and a title as a coach, he is a great coach.

"After the game, when one of us chills out and the other one comes down from the high, we’ll catch up over a beer."