The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Sydney's Northern Beaches. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL). The Manly club debuted in the 1947 New South Wales Rugby Football League season and currently hosts the majority of their home games at Brookvale Oval in Brookvale. They train at their Centre of Excellence in Brookvale, and at the New South Wales Academy of Sport in Narrabeen. The team colours are maroon and white, and they are commonly known as Manly.
The club competed in the NSWRL, ARL, or NRL competitions in all respective seasons from 1947 until 1999. At the end of 1999, they entered into a joint venture with the North Sydney Bears to form the Northern Eagles, which rugby league statisticians regard as a separate club. The Northern Eagles competed in the 2000 and 2001 NRL seasons, after which the joint venture collapsed. The Manly Warringah club (who held the NRL licence) competed in the NRL as the Northern Eagles for a further season in 2002, before abandoning the name and identity to return to what they are known as today.
Since winning their first premiership in 1972, the club has won a further seven first-grade titles, with their most recent being in 2011. The club's eight titles span five consecutive decades. Since their first Grand Final appearance in 1951, the club has appeared in 19 Grand Finals across seven consecutive decades.
History After unsuccessful attempts in 1937 and 1944, early in 1946 the Manly-Warringah Junior Rugby Football League again applied to the NSWRL for admission in 1947 to the Sydney district first grade clubs competition (now NRL).
By the mid-1940s, the movement to expand rugby league in Sydney had gained serious momentum and Manly and Warringah, as with all the other Sydney district rugby clubs, endured internal agonies as the new "League" was considered. In 1946, Manly-Warringah defeated North Sydney 12–8 in the Presidents Cup Grand Final which helped the club gain momentum in pushing for inclusion into the NSWRL competition.
The NSWRL finally accepted Manly-Warringah's application on the 4 November 1946. Along with Parramatta, they were granted admission to the 1947 competition. It was North Sydney themselves who had the most to lose from Manly-Warringah entering the league but they advocated for a team to be on the Northern Beaches. Norths believed Manly-Warringah's inclusion in the competition would provide a far better platform for Rugby League to gain a hold over Rugby Union in the peninsula area.
North Sydney endured an exodus of players to the newly formed team with 20 Manly and Warringah juniors returning to play for their local club in their first season. Norths lost half of their games in 1947, before spending the next four seasons towards the bottom of the ladder.
Manly immediately adopted the maroon and white colours they had used for their Presidents Cup team since its inception and borrowed originally from the Freshwater SLSC of which Ken Arthurson and other players were members. For their emblem they chose the sea eagle – the native bird of prey of the Sydney coastline. Although a number of media writers referred to Manly as the "sea gulls", the club maintains that it has always officially been the Sea Eagles.
The club sought to obtain use of Manly Oval as their home ground, however the lease of the ground from Manly Council was held by Manly rugby union club who refused to grant any match days to rugby league. The home field of the Manly-Warringah Junior Rugby League (the body who successfully secured the club's 1947 admission to first grade) had since at least 1939 been Brookvale Oval.
Manly-Warringah's first premiership game was against Western Suburbs at Brookvale Oval on Saturday 12 April 1947. Max Whitehead, who had first played for Norths in 1942 and was a member of their 1943 Grand Final team, was Manly's first captain. Whitehead was a big barrel-chested second rower who was used by Bonds as the model for their iconic "Chesty Bond" character. Their first win was against the Parramatta Eels and the club finished their first season in second last place.
Manly's first Grand Final appearance was in the 1951 season, which they lost to South Sydney. Manly Warringah played in five Grand Finals before winning their first premiership in 1972. They then won the following year in 1973 and again in 1976 and 1978. The 1973 final against Cronulla is reputed to be one of the hardest and toughest grand finals, at least in the televised era. There were several incidents of players being hurt, in particular very tough and hard English import, Mal Reilly, was "taken" out early and did not take any further part in the game.
Manly were powerful in the early 1980s but were beaten in two consecutive Grand finals by Parramatta, in 1982 and 1983. Their next premiership was won against the Canberra Raiders in the 1987 Grand final, the last Grand Final played at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Coached by Bob Fulton, the Sea Eagles returned to the play-offs in 1993 and 1994 but were beaten on each occasions in the first elimination semi-final by the Brisbane Broncos.
In 1988, Manly, missing six regular first grade players, including captain Paul Vautin, Michael O'Connor and Phil Daley who were all playing in the first Ashes series test just four days later, plus other stars such as Dale Shearer, Mal Cochrane and David Ronson (all six had played in the 1987 Grand Final win), put the touring Great Britain Lions to the sword with a 30-0 demolition at Brookvale Oval. Teenage halfback Geoff Toovey was named man of the match, scoring one of the Sea Eagles five tries on the night while the side was led by Noel Cleal who had a point to prove after being a shock omission from the Australian team. Great Britain's coach for their 1988 tour was Mal Reilly who had played lock forward for the Manly in their 1972 and 1973 Grand Final wins. It would be the first time that former premiership teammates Fulton and Reilly would oppose each other from the coaches box. With Fulton taking over as coach of the Australian team from 1989, it would not be their last time coaching against each other.
In 1995, amidst the Super League war, Manly produced one of its most dominating seasons in the club's history but in one of the league's biggest upsets, were beaten by Canterbury in the Grand Final. Despite being the best attacking side all year, the Sea Eagles could not score a try in the Grand Final and were defeated by the underdog Canterbury side, led by Terry Lamb.
In 1996 Manly made another Grand Final appearance and beat St. George to win the title that had eluded them the season before. Rugby League in Australia was split in two leagues in 1997, the ARL and Super League, and Manly were one of the leading teams in the ARL competition. For the third consecutive year Manly reached the Grand Final, however lapses in their intensity which appeared during the season returned in the premiership decider against the Mal Reilly coached Newcastle Knights and the Sea Eagles were beaten on the full-time siren by a Knights try.
The teams of 1995 to 1997 featured rugby league's strongest defence. Many great players featured, including Des Hasler, Geoff Toovey, Nik Kosef, Steve Menzies, Terry Hill, Mark Carroll, Cliff Lyons, David Gillespie, Craig Hancock, Danny Moore, John Hopoate, and former NZ All Blacks Matthew Ridge and Craig Innes.
After 1997 the club lost form on the field, recording only 10th place in the 1998 season, and missing the finals in 1999.
Northern Eagles
Manly Warringah would usher in the new millennium by merging with the North Sydney Bears to become the Northern Eagles, with Geoffrey Bellew being the Chairman at this time. This venture would run between 2000 and 2002. The club was formed during the rationalisation process of the NRL. The team would share home games between Brookvale Oval and Central Coast Stadium, Gosford, New South Wales.
Little success was had during these three seasons, finishing 12th, 10th, and 9th, winning 30 of 76 games. Also, the new club's decision to play games in Gosford instead of the Bears home ground at North Sydney Oval alienated several North Sydney fans, despite North Sydney's planned move to the new Central Coast Stadium. In spite of this, the club provided more players for the 2001 State of Origin series' New South Wales team than any other club. The partnership dissolved in 2002, with Manly emerging as the stand-alone entity. The 2002 season was played under the Northern Eagles name, although effectively the club was the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles by another name. Halfway through the season, the Eagles even abandoned playing games at Gosford, due to a sharp decline in attendances. The people of Gosford preferred to wait until a home grown team was based there.
The joint venture would collapse by the end of the 2001 season and Manly would officially make a welcome return to the NRL in 2003.
Resurrection
The joint venture collapsed and Manly retained the Northern Eagles licence for the 2002 season until returning to the competition as Manly Warringah Sea Eagles for the 2003 season. The 2006 and 2007 seasons produced very few moments of joy for Sea Eagles supporters. The club improved its playing stocks for 2005, and reached the semi-finals for the first time since 1998. Manly would not miss the finals until 2015, whilst every other club have missed the finals at least once since 2004. A meeting of the Football Club on 3 June 2004 saw the club members vote for the privatisation of the Football Club.
During this period, Manly introduced a number of players who became stars of the game over the next decade including local juniors Jason King and Anthony Watmough, as well as the Stewart brothers from Wollongong, back row forward Glenn and speedy try scoring fullback Brett.
2007 season
Manly finished the 2007 regular season in 2nd (out of 16) place, losing only six matches throughout. Their 50-16 mauling of Newcastle ensured they would finish in the top two. Throughout the season they were the only club chasing Melbourne (whom they beat in round 11) for the minor premiership. After defeating North Queensland at the Sydney Football Stadium 28–6, Manly played in their 15th grand final against Melbourne, where they were beaten 34–8 by Melbourne on 30 September at Telstra Stadium.
Melbourne would later be stripped of the 2007 title for salary cap breaches.
2008 season
With the departure of hooker Michael Monaghan, many questioned whether the Manly could be as competitive as in 2007 and losses in the first 2 rounds seemed to confirm this. Manly finished the regular season tied first with Melbourne and Cronulla but 2nd on points differential and Manly missed out on claiming their first minor premiership since 1997.
In the qualifying final Manly faced 7th placed St. George at Brookvale. This game was club legend Steve Menzies' last game at Brookvale and he opened the scoring with an unusual charge down try in which after kicking ahead to himself and falling over, the ball bounced up and hit him in the head before he finally grounded it. After getting the week off, Manly faced the history-making New Zealand Warriors. Manly crushed the Warriors 32–6 and showcased their trademark wall of defence and attacking flair. With the win, Manly qualified for their 17th grand final, where in a rematch of the 2007 decider, they would play the Melbourne Storm.