What’s smart about polarising your own club’s fans 3 rounds into the season?
What’s smart about making his announcement on 100% Footy & talking about a smear campaign after a club game & about himself when interviewed in SOO camp, then refusing to answer any questions about his future later in the season?
I can understand liking a player (I was a fair fan of DCE’s up until his announcement too) but to wax his carrot & try to rewrite the narrative to make it about what a smart operator he is is laughable.
The bloke has just about done everything wrong when it comes to PR in his career.
Others have already pointed out the other fallacies in your post but I’ll remind you that the suggestion that DCE wasn’t happy being coached by Seibold doesn’t fly with me for these reasons:
1. He’s shown his love of $$$ several times in his career before;
2. He was perfectly happy to be coached by Barrett, who has a worse win/loss ratio than Seibold;
3. He acted like the loser in a transaction when he went on 100% Footy to make his announcement - it was pure sour grapes & a transparent attempt to get in front of any rumours circulating that the club hadn’t made him an offer, something that would have been very quickly justified with his sudden slump in form, which also resulted in him losing his QLD captaincy.
4. He lowered himself to going to Danny Weidler to get his side of the story out. Ewwwww 🥴
You show a lot of confidence for a man that appears to glaze over facts and talk a lot of fiction.
Let's deal in facts.
Your first line makes it sound like Manly is and has been a well run and managed club for years. Never had any issues with coaches, former players or the NRL.... Yep 100%.... Dce just decided to blow up his lifelong club for absolutely no reason other than hes a C##t....
I think perhaps you forget Players are doing a job and getting paid for it. Sure they might love the game but some fans like yourself seem to think they owe you something because you allow them to play for you.
He made an announcement on the TV because manly as a club had failed to lock this down.... never happened before for our club has it? Coaches fired, CEO changing every 12 months, former players suing. A clueless owner. The list goes on.
If manly had have offered him a decent deal with a road map into the future back end of last year none of this happens.
He's bad at PR yes? Let's think. He wins a premiership in year 1 thanks to a great team and coach. He becomes a top half in the premiership and Manly (go back to an earlier point) decide to tell him he can go so they can sign FOZ... For screws the club for a number of reasons and THE CLUB offer a huge deal to backflip which he does (most players would).... of course he had some bad PR over this but it was just a blip in a long career.
And to directly answer your points.
1. Yes its his job. Do you have a job? Do you like to get paid? Did you ever get or pursue a payrise? Would you leave a current job for more money? If you answer yes to 2 or more of those points you are exactly the same as him.
2. Perfectly happybto be coached by Barrett? Middle of a 10 year DCE deal the CLUB signs Barrett. What is he supposed to do? FFS.
3. Obviously he felt let down by the powers that be. The same people that appear to be shopping Turbo to superleague. The same club that did rainbow gate. The same club thats backing a looser of a coach. Of course he wants to get out in front of it. He's not an idiot. Any celebrity or public figure needs to control the narrative. It's PR 101 and a SMART tactic.
4. I can't say anything nice about point 4. DW is a wanker.
So yeah. I disagree with just about everything you wrote. But thats OK. Opinions are like buses. Sometimes you get it and sometimes you dont but there will always be another just around the corner.
Finally
After Fogerty's inability to close out tonight's game im even more sure we as a Club will miss DCE a huge amount next year. Greta job Manly.