Manly great Anthony Watmough has savaged his club for proposing to move its junior and women’s programs away from the northern beaches amid fears the North Sydney Bears will snap up the region’s best young talent.
The Sea Eagles want to slash costs in their pathways system by “outsourcing” their junior representative teams to other areas – and have board approval to investigate.
Negotiations with the Central Coast Rugby League earlier this year broke down after a disagreement over costs.
On Monday, football general manager John Bonasera and recruitment manager Peter Gentle met with Blacktown Workers about taking on Manly’s Jersey Flegg (under-21s) and Harvey Norman NSW women’s premiership team.
Blacktown Workers has served as the Sea Eagles’ NSW Cup team since 2017, but the partnership is reportedly on the verge of collapse.
Sources familiar with issue, not authorised to speak publicly due to sensitive nature of the negotiations, said the meeting on Monday ended acrimoniously after neither Bonasera nor Gentle could provide details about funding nor how many players were already contracted.
Brad Parker celebrates scoring a try for the Blacktown Workers Sea Eagles.Credit: NRL Photos
Manly’s desire to offload their junior teams has infuriated former players like Watmough, a two-time premiership winner who coaches the Sydney Shield team.
Former players such as Geoff Toovey, Brett Stewart, Matt Orford, Jamie Buhrer, and Solomon Haumono have been used in the club’s pathways for the past two years to infuse “Manly DNA” into the junior system.
Watmough, a Narrabeen Sharks junior, fears that good work will be undone.
“How this is a conversation is laughable,” he said. “Do they just not get it? Do they not understand the tribal nature of the game? If our fans’ kids aren’t playing for Manly, they won’t support Manly. They don’t want to travel to Blacktown to play NSW Cup or Flegg.
“Do they not get that the Bears, our biggest rival in history, is coming back into the NRL? Our fans and our people will just go. Do you think they’re going to support Manly if their kids are playing for North Sydney?
Anthony Watmough celebrates scoring a try for Manly in 2013.Credit: Anthony Johnson
“I love this club and I hate to see the hard work of a lot of people destroyed by knee-jerk decisions.”
Manly chief executive Tony Mestrov would not answer questions specifically about offloading teams to Blacktown Workers or other leagues, but confirmed he had instigated a review of the club’s pathways four months ago.
“I wouldn’t call myself a pathways expert, but I know a hell of a lot,” he said. “I understand it and other people don’t. That’s no disrespect to them, but they don’t. I have for the last four months made it my job to review it to come up with a model that produces NRL players.”
Asked if Manly were abandoning their local juniors, he said: “That couldn’t be further from the truth. I have brought back the local juniors. This is where there is misconstruing of what is going on here.
“In Harold Matthews [under-17s] there are 23 players out of 33 who are local juniors. There’s a real focus on the local juniors. The club has had a focus on western Sydney. As of two years ago, that focus has changed to the local juniors. We want our local juniors to fill our rep jerseys. There’s a real vibe that local juniors are getting a go. That coincides with the home crowds and sellouts we’ve got.”
Which begs the question: why change it if it’s working?
“It’s so small-minded to think that your club’s success is determined by what the NRL side does,” Watmough said. “The community has been burned before. If they do it again, I don’t know how long it will take to rebuild the trust between the club and community.”
Manly coach Anthony Seibold denied he was one of the architects of the pathways overhaul.
“I have not personally been involved in any conversations around a restructure of the pathways,” he said via text message. “I have had others who work in that space discuss with me their proposals.
“The pathways are managed by the general manager, head of recruitment and pathways manager. I am not involved in that process other than being informed of what they are doing on a need-to-know basis. As the head coach my entire focus is the NRL program.”
Blacktown Workers declined to comment when contacted on Thursday.
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