Berkeley_Eagle
Current Status: 24/7 Manly Fan
Mike Colman From: The Sunday Mail (Qld) September 04, 2011 12:00AM
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/dessie-does-the-time-warp-again/story-fn6ck6i3-1226128879812
MANLY coach Des Hasler reckons the NRL should tell his club how they plan to spend the $50,000 it was fined for the weekend's sideline brawl.
I've got an idea. How about the league invests in a time machine to bring Manly into the present day?
Who the heck does Hasler think he is? Frank Stanton or Ron Willey or some other Manly coach from the 1970s? That's obviously the time frame he's living in, along with the rest of his club's administrators.
Take Manly's suspended media manager Peter Peters for instance.
Zorba was part of the Sea Eagles grand final team in 1973 when he and the rest of the Manly pack spent much of the game getting thumped in the head by Cronulla front-rower Cliff Watson.
The violence in that game made last weekend's blue look like a six year-old's birthday party. And what was the fallout? Nothing. No suspensions, no fines, no outrage.
It was just the way footy was then.
Maybe that's why the Sea Eagles handled this current brouhaha so poorly. Living in the 70s like they do, they can't see what all the fuss is about.
That's probably also the reason Zorba stuck both his feet in his mouth on Wednesday night when he said to a reporter endeavouring to do her job, "you're a good sort".
Not once, but twice, and surrounded by a battery of TV cameras and microphones. Brilliant.
Someone remarked to me yesterday that Peters' comment did more harm to the image of rugby league than the brawl.
Given that the majority of people seem to think of the fight as "just part of footy", it's probably a fair call. Especially when the people David Gallop is so worried about offending are the mums who sign the under-seven enrolment forms.
You also have to wonder how influential, successful woman like Sarah Murdoch, Wendy Harmer, Layne Beachley, Louise Sauvage, Johanna Griggs and Zali Steggall, who make up the Manly support group Eagles Angels, feel knowing that the man in charge of advising Manly players on how to deal with the media, and in turn the public, is 40 years behind current accepted practice.
Still, what can you expect when the rest of the club refuses to grasp that times have changed and Ken Arthurson doesn't run the game any more?
The moral outrage with which Manly react whenever anything goes against them is beyond annoying. It's downright boring.
I've often described Phil Gould as a Japanese soldier on a Pacific island who doesn't know the war is over for his continuing one-man crusade against Super League.
I'm starting to think Hasler is on another island.
It's been almost three seasons since David Gallop fined Manly and suspended Brett Stewart when the code's poster boy was allegedly drunk at a club function. Three seasons and a few hundred games of rugby league.
Yet Hasler and the club just cannot get over it, never missing an opportunity to remind the world how hard done by they are and to demand an admission from Gallop that he did the wrong thing way back when.
It's an admission he has made patently clear will not be coming.
With every press conference blow-up from Hasler or self-important press release emanating from Zorba's laptop you can sense the postscript: "This wouldn't have happened if Arko was still in charge".
That's the whole point. Arko isn't in charge, which means Manly aren't a protected species any more (although looking at Brett Stewart's one-week suspension for his incendiary role in the brawl you have to wonder). They are just a footy club like everyone else and the 1970s are ancient history.
The sooner that filters through to the people in their ivory tower on Pittwater Rd, the better off we'll all be. There will be less complaining, whingeing and arrogance.
And maybe fewer sexist comments. Or is that too much to hope for?
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/dessie-does-the-time-warp-again/story-fn6ck6i3-1226128879812
MANLY coach Des Hasler reckons the NRL should tell his club how they plan to spend the $50,000 it was fined for the weekend's sideline brawl.
I've got an idea. How about the league invests in a time machine to bring Manly into the present day?
Who the heck does Hasler think he is? Frank Stanton or Ron Willey or some other Manly coach from the 1970s? That's obviously the time frame he's living in, along with the rest of his club's administrators.
Take Manly's suspended media manager Peter Peters for instance.
Zorba was part of the Sea Eagles grand final team in 1973 when he and the rest of the Manly pack spent much of the game getting thumped in the head by Cronulla front-rower Cliff Watson.
The violence in that game made last weekend's blue look like a six year-old's birthday party. And what was the fallout? Nothing. No suspensions, no fines, no outrage.
It was just the way footy was then.
Maybe that's why the Sea Eagles handled this current brouhaha so poorly. Living in the 70s like they do, they can't see what all the fuss is about.
That's probably also the reason Zorba stuck both his feet in his mouth on Wednesday night when he said to a reporter endeavouring to do her job, "you're a good sort".
Not once, but twice, and surrounded by a battery of TV cameras and microphones. Brilliant.
Someone remarked to me yesterday that Peters' comment did more harm to the image of rugby league than the brawl.
Given that the majority of people seem to think of the fight as "just part of footy", it's probably a fair call. Especially when the people David Gallop is so worried about offending are the mums who sign the under-seven enrolment forms.
You also have to wonder how influential, successful woman like Sarah Murdoch, Wendy Harmer, Layne Beachley, Louise Sauvage, Johanna Griggs and Zali Steggall, who make up the Manly support group Eagles Angels, feel knowing that the man in charge of advising Manly players on how to deal with the media, and in turn the public, is 40 years behind current accepted practice.
Still, what can you expect when the rest of the club refuses to grasp that times have changed and Ken Arthurson doesn't run the game any more?
The moral outrage with which Manly react whenever anything goes against them is beyond annoying. It's downright boring.
I've often described Phil Gould as a Japanese soldier on a Pacific island who doesn't know the war is over for his continuing one-man crusade against Super League.
I'm starting to think Hasler is on another island.
It's been almost three seasons since David Gallop fined Manly and suspended Brett Stewart when the code's poster boy was allegedly drunk at a club function. Three seasons and a few hundred games of rugby league.
Yet Hasler and the club just cannot get over it, never missing an opportunity to remind the world how hard done by they are and to demand an admission from Gallop that he did the wrong thing way back when.
It's an admission he has made patently clear will not be coming.
With every press conference blow-up from Hasler or self-important press release emanating from Zorba's laptop you can sense the postscript: "This wouldn't have happened if Arko was still in charge".
That's the whole point. Arko isn't in charge, which means Manly aren't a protected species any more (although looking at Brett Stewart's one-week suspension for his incendiary role in the brawl you have to wonder). They are just a footy club like everyone else and the 1970s are ancient history.
The sooner that filters through to the people in their ivory tower on Pittwater Rd, the better off we'll all be. There will be less complaining, whingeing and arrogance.
And maybe fewer sexist comments. Or is that too much to hope for?
