Matty Johns: Time for Manly’s big guns to lead the way
Manly might not have planned to follow Melbourne’s ‘Big Three’ model but the Sea Eagles’ struggles last season and in round one prove it’s not a suitable path for every club, writes Matty Johns.
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Blaming Des Hasler for Manly’s poor 2020 season and last week’s round one flogging by the Roosters is unfair.
Des inherited a problem a couple of years back which puts the Sea Eagles’ season constantly on a knife’s edge. When the Melbourne Storm put the pieces of their football team back together again after the 2010 salary cap scandal, they went with a new model.
Rather than spread the money across the squad of players with about six or seven slightly higher wage spikes, they went with the ‘Big Three’ model. A massive slice of the salary cap went to Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk, and around those three stars would be hardworking blue-collar footballers and talented youngsters with potential.
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Many thought it was crazy, far too risky to have success hinge on so few, and not enough
quality and experience around them to succeed.
They were wrong, it worked, in fact it worked brilliantly.
As is the way in the NRL, other clubs followed suit, but very few have had anywhere near the same success because they don’t understand the intricacies of what makes it work.
Firstly, it’s the players around the stars. You often hear Melbourne coaches and officials refer
to their recruitment as looking for a ‘Storm footballer’.
A ‘Storm footballer’ has no reference to talent, it’s in reference to human qualities.
They recruit smart, tough, disciplined men who have the desire to be better. The ‘stars’ are
surrounded by footballers with these qualities.
The other crucial element of this model is that if one of the ‘Big Three’ are missing, the other
two can adjust and absorb their absence.
For instance, if the Roosters lost James Tedesco for the season, players like Luke Keary would still, at the very least get them to the finals, possibly top four. The same if Melbourne lost Cameron Munster.
But for Manly that’s anything but the case.
I don’t think any other club gives more of their salary cap to their main stars. That very much
centres around the ‘lifetime contract’ halfback Daly Cherry-Evans signed several seasons back which makes him the highest paid player in the game. Cap-wise the DCE contract makes assembling a balanced squad a real challenge for Hasler.
But on top of that, the rise and rise of Tom and Jake Trbojevic means Manly has had to increase their wages considerably or face the very real threat of losing them, something that would be catastrophic for the club given their talents and popularity among Sea Eagles fans.
Manly are extremely lucky Jake and Tom are local boys whose loyalty to the club meant they
didn’t throw themselves on the open market which would have no doubt forced the Sea Eagles to pay considerably more and be in huge salary cap trouble.
I don’t know if Manly consciously went for the ‘Big Three’ model or due to circumstance
they have just arrived at it. I suspect it’s the latter.
Given how much cap is given to Manly’s ‘Big Three,’ the Sea Eagles have done very well to
assemble the roster they have. But being able to cope with the absence of one of the ‘Big Three’ is the issue. More to the point, the bloke at fullback.
In the last two seasons Manly’s win/loss rate, around Tom Trbojevic is frightening.
There’s no such thing as a one-man team, but boy this is starting to look like a good
impersonation.
When Tom plays, Manly win 74 per cent of their matches, when he’s missing it’s 30 per cent.
People are looking to Hasler to fix this problem but that’s taking the attention and the
pressure off the players whose real job it is.
The Manly, ‘with and without Tom’ win percentage is something which is being raised more
and more frequently, and it must cut DCE to the bone, given his standing in the game, the
responsibility which comes with his position and the responsibility which comes with being
captain.
Cherry-Evans was not the reason Manly got flogged last Saturday by the Roosters, but he must be the reason why they will turn that performance around against South Sydney at Brookvale Oval on Saturday.
And he has to be the reason why Manly start winning without the big, tall fullback.
Manly’s success or failure cannot hinge on Tom’s hamstrings.
You don’t look to the highest paid players in the team to get you through these kind of
predicaments just because they’re the highest paid players. You look to the highest paid
players because they are your best and most important ones.
I’m expecting huge improvement in Manly on Saturday but to actually win they need DCE at his very, very best. And that means constantly challenging the Souths middle defence, not
just pushing the ball sideways.
A player like Tom is a luxury for a playmaker, you throw him the ball and things just happen.
But Saturday night it’s DCE who needs to be the trigger, he needs to play with upfield thrust looking to penetrate the defence, not skim across it.
Likewise, Jake Trbojevic needs one of his special games and not just by inspiring with his
trademark passion.
Jake’s clever ball-playing through the centre of the field is a crucial element in Manly’s attack but he needs to start using some variations. The Roosters studied him and defended him and his runners confidently last Saturday. If he starts using some subtle variances, he’ll really
worry the Rabbitohs.
Everything points to a Souths victory but trust me this will be a tricky match for them, Manly so often rebound off bad losses and pull off upsets at home.
But victory is in the hands of Manly’s ‘Big Two.’
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