‘Should be the coach’: Why hiring Flanagan is ‘the smartest thing Manly did and also the dumbest’

The Manly Sea Eagles have come under fire over a crucial decision about their coaching structure for season 2023.

Anthony Seibold and Shane Flanagan.

Hiring Shane Flanagan as an assistant coach is both the “smartest” and “dumbest” thing Manly could do, according to NRL 360 co-host Paul Kent.

After Des Hasler was sacked as head coach last year, the Sea Eagles assembled a new coaching staff with former Broncos head honcho Anthony Seibold getting the top job and Flanagan and Jim Dymock brought in as assistants.

It’s Seibold’s first opportunity as a head coach since his dramatic fall from grace in Brisbane in 2020 where he was shown the door less than two seasons into his five-year deal.

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Speaking on NRL 360, News Corp journalist Michael Carayannis credited Seibold for turning Manly’s misfortune’s around.

The Sea Eagles finished 11th and there were rumours of fractures in the playing group following the Pride jersey saga. But under Seibold, they won the Pre-season Challenge and their first game of the season.

“That club was in a bit of a hole at the back end of last year. He’s galvanised the group and brought them together,” Carayannis said.

“He’s surrounded himself with good people as well, I think that’s helped, having some senior assistants that can take the heat off and when he’s going a bit too far out they can bring him in.

“Shane Flanagan and Jim Dymock are very much people persons and relatable to the players so I think it’s a very good coaching group.”

Anthony Seibold and Shane Flanagan.

However Kent believes Manly “100 per cent should have” made Flanagan the head coach, declaring: “He’s far more qualified than Seibold to be a head coach. Seibold can coach, but he’s got a better credentialed assistant there to help him through.”

Kent also said “the smartest thing Manly did is also the dumbest thing they did,” referring to the appointment of Flanagan as an assistant.

“He’ll sit there and when Anthony Seibold starts to make mistakes, Shane Flanagan will say ‘hang on this is the way we need to go’,” Kent added.

“Shane Flanagan is a head coach anywhere else, he’s more than capable of being a head coach and Seibold wet the bed when he was in Brisbane. When it starts to happen here, he’s got Flanagan there, who’s going to be the bloke he leans on.

“Everyone overlooks what Shane Flanagan did. He took over a club that finished 14th and took it to a premiership when he was in charge of running the roster, the salary cap — the whole ducks guts. There was no Phil Gould overlooking anything, he ran the whole lot.

“He’s now at Manly as an assistant coach — that’s such a blessing for a bloke like Seibold.”

New Manly Warringah Sea Eagles coach, Anthony Seibold, has come under fire. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Seibold is known for being able to talk the talk, but he was ultimately caught out at Red Hill for not being able to walk the walk.

Fox League’s James Hooper believes Seibold has “done a really good job trying to reinvent himself” and revealed he’s simplified his coaching.

“I think he has pulled the X’s and O’s back a little bit and in terms of the team meetings and information being given — I don’t think it’s anywhere near the extent that it was when things went pear-shaped at the Broncos.”

But Kent isn’t so convinced.

“He’s got all the answers,” he said.

“A weekend at Harvard doesn’t make you a professor.

“Good luck to Anthony Seibold, the players are responding to him, I think he’s blessed with a really good roster that he’s inherited and I think Manly are in really good shape.”

Originally published as ‘Should be the coach’: Why hiring Flanagan is ‘the smartest thing Manly did and also the dumbest’