HIT by injuries during a narrow defeat to St George Illawarra, Manly coach Anthony Seibold has questioned the NRL’s scheduling of matches and claimed it’s contrary to player welfare.
The 20-18 defeat at a packed 4 Pines Park was the Sea Eagles’ third in succession with Jake Trbojevic (concussion), Nathan Brown (shoulder) and Tommy Talau (leg) joining their casualty list.
But Seibold had a point he said he had been intent on making afterwards, regardless of the result.
“We finished with no-one fit on the bench and this was our third game in 11 days,” he said following a contest his men only just managed to pull from the fire.
“That’s five games in 25 days. The NRL’s never been more demanding. We talk about player welfare and I don’t understand how….
“I see it’s the same with other clubs. I see the Raiders, their schedule, the Sharks schedule.
“But if you just look at us for a minute, three games in 11 days and then we lose two days in the air to Perth, a five-hour trip each way.
“So there’s another two days down.
“I don’t understand it
“See the GPS. The GPS data is through the roof this year.
“I think it’s something that needs to be looked at. It’s certainly not an excuse for how we played because I felt as though we competed hard at the end and you don’t do that if you don’t have energy.
“We had 20 minutes on the field this entire week.
“In the AFL they don’t have less than six-day turnarounds. In their sport they run a lot more but they don’t have the contact we have.
“No-one’s going to listen to one coach or whoever but I’m just putting it out there … it’s not going to change this year, of course.
“We’ve got another three games in 11 days through the Origin period, four if you’re playing Origin.”
Father and son Shane and Kyle Flanagan also figured prominently in post-match discussions, the coach making his way down to the sideline and remonstrating with NRL officials and his son mocking critics.
“Yeah … worst halves combination in the comp but we’ll just keep building our game and I really enjoy playing alongside him,” Kyle said on Triple M in relation to his scrumbase partnership with Lachlan Ilias.
Dad Shane offered: “Kyle and Lachy as first grade halfbacks, it was questionable about whether, you know, they could get a team around the park and do their job.
“But I think they’re both doing a really good job as NRL halves.”
Explaining his detour to the sideline, the coach said he had been alarmed that the game resumed when the Dragons had only 12 players on the field.
Because an injury was caused by foul play, the joint venture had actually been entitled to activate their 18th man.
While Jake Trbojevic won’t play next week due to concussion but brother Tom is rated a “good chance” of making his comeback.
ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA 20 (Sloan 2 Liddle tries Holmes 4 goals) beat MANLY 18 (Koula B Trbojevic Saab tries Garrick 3 goals) at 4 Pines Park. Referee: Peter Gough.
Embed from Getty Images
Teams:
MANLY: Lehi Hopoate; Jason Saab, Tolutau Koula, Reuben Garrick, Tommy Talau; Luke Brooks, Daly Cherry-Evans (c); Siosiua Taukeiaho, Jazz Tevaga, Haumole Olakau’atu, Toafofoa Sipley, Ben Trbojevic, Jake Trbojevic. Res: Jake Simpkin, Nathan Brown, Ethan Bullemor, Clayton Faulalo. 18th man: Caleb Navale.
DRAGONS: Clint Gutherson (c); Tyrell Sloan, Moses Suli, Valentine Holmes, Matthew Fegai; Kyle Flanagan, Lachlan Illias; Toby Couchman, Damian Cook, David Klemmer, Jaydn Sua, Dylan Egan, Jack De Belin. Res: Luciano Leilua, Jacob Liddle, Blake Lawrie, Hamish Stewart. 18th man: Sione Finau.
Image: Vaughn Ridley/SWpix
