Manly Sea Eagles still being haunted by their pride jersey fiasco

The Manly Sea Eagles are having a season to forget in 2023 and their downfall can all be traced back to one divisive piece of fabric.

COMMENT

Manly’s 2023 is almost a write-off and it can all be traced back to their naive attempt to be nice.

The aftershocks of the pride jersey have engulfed the Sea Eagles again, with another season annihilated by rainbow polyester almost nine months after the fateful garment first hugged Reuben Garrick’s delightful rig.

Following an abysmal performance against the Broncos at Magic Round that exhibited all the resilience of a broth, angry fans are again calling for more scapegoats at Manly to go alongside Josh Schuster.

Watch every game of every round of the 2023 NRL Telstra Premiership Season LIVE on Kayo Sports. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >

And while it’s akin to blaming a Twitter bug on your Microsoft 95, I’m saying they can safely pin the club’s declining performances solely on this cursed jersey.

Since the move to support gay rights split the organisation like a pistachio, not only has Manly seen two seasons go off the rails, Jake Trbojevic has inherited his brother’s calves and Schuster’s contract has been padded with extra zeroes.

These incidents could’ve been considered purely coincidental, but once the club was linked with Kyle Flanagan and Daly Cherry-Evans’ went sneakily bald, there was only one prime culprit.

That bloody jersey.

The pride jersey divided the NRL. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Sure, linking a flyblown team performance to a marketing decision may be considered unfounded, or even unmedicated. You may even question how Tom Trbejovic’s hammies could actually get sunk by gay rights.

But how else do you explain the players’ faces?

This Manly side looks directionless, but it’s not due to Tommy Turbo or the complexity of Anthony Seibold’s game plan. It’s because they’re too busy pondering their unlikely role in the Culture Wars as a symbol for the intersection of religious free speech and social justice, plus ‘Fozza’ abandoning them for the Goldie.

And besides, as chairman Scott Penn attested at the time, the bad juju of the jersey was originally Des Hasler’s fault. But now he’s gone and the juju persists, what else could it be?

For those uninitiated to the pride jersey saga, this began as a well-intentioned show of solidarity with a minority community that ultimately split the Sea Eagles playing squad and cost the club millions of dollars and Fultons.

What have we done. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

The club commissioned a special rainbow strip supporting the LGBTQI community to wear during Women in League Round – because who needs nuance in their crusades these days – a move which disastrously resulted in seven players withdrawing on religious grounds and a resounding win on the night for Satan, aka the Roosters.

Whichever side of the political divide you sit on, everyone agreed: it was a regrettable firestorm of terrible planning followed by even more terrible discourse that unfairly embroiled the gay and lesbian community.

Ever since, the club has sacked Hasler and descended in to factional infighting, a state Manly commonly refers to as normal business.

Regrettably, as a hotbed of barely demilitarised civil war, it appears the jersey will continue to derail Manly for seasons to come, unless they can move forward by botching a Save the Seals campaign, or by just bringing back Bob Fulton.

– Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Originally published as Manly Sea Eagles still being haunted by their pride jersey fiasco