His team have surged into the NRL top eight after a hot streak that has, temporarily at least, quelled speculation about his job security.
But Manly coach Anthony Seibold is in no mood to tempt fate, because the next three games, rather than the three they have just won, could make or break the Sea Eagles’ finals hopes.
“There are certainly some building blocks there, but we’re nowhere near where we want to be, and need to be,” Seibold said after Saturday’s 18-16 triumph against the Storm in Melbourne.
“We’ve just got to keep building.”
It was a breakthrough win for Manly on a number of fronts.
First and foremost, it squared the ledger after Melbourne’s 48-24 victory at Brookvale in round five - Manly’s heaviest defeat this season. It was also the Sea Eagles’ first success on the Storm’s home turf since 2019, and the first time this season they have strung together three consecutive wins, after downing Wests Tigers (28-10) and South Sydney (30-12) in their previous two outings.
But any satisfaction Seibold was feeling was tempered the realities of his team’s precarious position.
While Manly are in seventh position on the NRL ladder, if you disregard the points awarded for byes, they would actually drop to ninth, behind the Dolphins on for-and-against statistics.
And with daunting games looming large against Canterbury (away), Sydney Roosters (home) and competition leaders Canberra (away) in the next three weeks, we should soon have a clearer idea of whether Manly are finals bound, or whether they are flattering to deceive.
Winning in Melbourne would suggest Manly have what it takes to qualify for the post-season. The Storm’s previous defeat in their own backyard was almost 12 months ago, against St George Illawarra in round 22 last season, and they had subsequently won 10 in a row at home.
Manly coach Anthony Seibold has steered his team to three consecutive wins.Credit: Sam Mooy
Despite missing the muscle of injured enforcers Haumole Olakau’atu, Josh Aloiai, Taniela Paseka and Nathan Brown, Manly got the better of Melbourne’s imposing pack.
“I felt in round five they really bullied us,” Seibold said. “They came to Brooky and got stuck into us. We weren’t happy as a group with how we played that particular day, so we wanted to give a good, physical account of ourselves.
“We want to be the best version of ourselves, and to beat the Storm, you need to be somewhere near that.
“So there was a real physicality from both sides.”
There was no lack of intensity when Manly clashed with Melbourne on Saturday. Credit: Getty Images
Seibold was confident there was still improvement in his team, who have finished seventh under him in their past two campaigns.
“It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it was somewhere near the best of ourselves, particularly defensively,” Seibold said.
“I think we scored three tries in a 10-minute period in that first half, and we were really, really good in attack and asked a lot of questions of a really good defensive team.”
Meanwhile, Seibold said the Sea Eagles were considering challenging a concussion ruling that restricted bench hooker Jake Simpkin to six minutes of game time against Melbourne and threatens to rule him out of their clash with Canterbury at Allianz Stadium next Sunday.
Simpkin was crunched by an elbow to the head from Melbourne’s Nelson Asofa-Solomona, who copped a double-barrelled punishment for his indiscipline - the Storm had a Harry Grant try disallowed, and now Asofa-Solomona is facing a suspension.
“He was ruled category one from the bunker, but our testing suggested it was category two,” Seibold said of Simpkin.
“Jake doesn’t have a mark on his face.
“Obviously Nelson’s a big man, so he copped a fair elbow from Nelson, and he stayed down because of that, but he wasn’t concussed.
“So we don’t believe it was category one, but we lost him for the night, so we were down to three players on the interchange bench.
“We might challenge that. Our doc considers it was assessed as category two inside [the dressing room].
“If that’s the case tomorrow - you have the protocols that the doctor and medical staff need to do - then we might put a case to appeal that was category two, rather than category one.”
Players face a mandatory stand-down period of 11 days after category-one concussions, but they can back up and play in their team’s next game if it is only a category-two incident.
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