The full and worrying extent of Manly’s troubles, on and off the field

MANLY are understaffed, underresourced, underperforming and play out of the worst stadium in the NRL. Is their future in serious jeopardy?

Sea Eagles players react after conceding a try during the Round 23 NRL match between the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles and the Gold Coast Titans at Lottoland in Sydney, Friday, August 17, 2018. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts) NO ARCHIVING, EDITORIAL USE ONLY

UNDERSTAFFED, under resourced and under fire.

The Manly Sea Eagles are reeling from yet another self-inflicted wound amid suggestions coach Trent Barrett resigned a month ago.

Now they are faced with an even tougher question: who would want to take control of the NRL’s worst club?

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Manly’s crowds are their lowest in half a century. AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts.

The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered startling figures that illustrate why Barrett reached breaking point leading a club playing out of the most dilapidated stadium in the NRL.

The once almighty Silvertails rank as one of the poorest clubs in the NRL.

Owner and chairman Scott Penn has poured more than $10 million of his own money into the club.

Serious concerns surround the club’s long term viability with their home crowd attendance slipping by 39 per cent in the past decade at Lottoland.

Manly are one of the lowest spending clubs in the NRL, confirming Barrett’s concerns that the club lacks the resources needed to compete with the competition’s big guns.

Club sources revealed that Manly spent just $13.7 million on their entire football department operations last year. That figure includes the $7 million spent on player contracts through the salary cap.

Manly could claim their first wooden spoon. AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts.

The total football club spend is about $5 million below some of the top spending clubs such as the Brisbane Broncos.

Manly sit alongside the Gold Coast Titans and Wests Tigers as the lowest spending clubs.

The NRL’s new $13 million club grant has been a saving grace for the Sea Eagles this year.

Requests for advances in grants from the NRL has been par for the course in recent seasons.

Trent Barrett is poised to shoot through. AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts.

The football staff operate within demountables at Narrabeen where the number of staff is about three or four short compared to the rest of the NRL competition. Simple requests like club lunches or training camps that some clubs take for granted come with their own obstacles.

The biggest absence has been a head of recruitment, which has left the club with no long-term strategy to manage their player roster. There is also no chief operating officer since Neil Bare was banned for 12 months by the NRL for his role in the salary cap cheating in March.

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The front office is not much better with a high level of turnover as the club operates on a shoestring budget. Most clubs employ about double the staff of the Sea Eagles.

They are still locked in a battle with the NRL regarding their salary cap punishment which included a $660,000 penalty applied to the club’s salary cap for this year and next year. A decision is expected by the end of this month.

Fans are also abandoning the Sea Eagles in their time of needed. The club has the second least amount of members in the NRL with just 12,000 — 2000 more than the least supported Titans. Rival Sydney clubs Parramatta (25,000) and South Sydney (29,000) have more than double the members of Manly.

Only once this year have more than 11,000 fans attended a home game at Lottoland with just 6382 turning up for their 6pm clash against the Titans on Friday night.

Their home crowds have been so poor that they will average less than 10,000 for the first time in 16 years at Brookvale, down 22.6 per cent on last year.

On the field, the situation is similarly dire.

After reaching 10 consecutive finals series from 2005 to 2014 the Sea Eagles will miss September action for the fourth time in five years.

With two weeks remaining they are in danger of “winning” the club’s first wooden spoon.

Originally published as The full and worrying extent of Manly’s troubles, on and off the field