Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles
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Club Information | |
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Full name | Manly-Warringah District Rugby League Football Club |
Founded | 1947 |
Current Details | |
Ground(s) | Brookvale Oval (23,000) |
CEO(s) | Grant Mayer |
Coach(s) | Des Hasler |
Competition | National Rugby League |
2007 | National Rugby League, 2nd |
The Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles are an Australian professional rugby League club based on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. They play in the National Rugby League, the premier rugby league competition in Australasia. The club first appeared in the 1947 New South Wales Rugby Football League season and currently plays home matches out of its home ground Brookvale Oval whilst being based out of the New South Wales Academy of Sport in Narrabeen.
Since winning their first premiership in 1972, the club has won a total of six First Grade titles along with a number of other competitions. Their most recent Grand Final appearance came in 2007, where they were beaten 34-8 by the Melbourne Storm.
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[edit] History
A public meeting on 20 November 1946 saw the formation of the Manly-Warringah District Rugby League Football Club, to play in the New South Wales Rugby League senior competition. Also voted for, was the adoption of maroon and white colours and the establishment of Brookvale Oval as the home ground.
The Manly-Warringah Junior Rugby Football League (MWJRFL) was founded in February 1932 with six clubs established for the local competition. This allowed for the Manly-Warringah club to enter a team into the President’s Cup, which was a district competition run by the NSWRL for club juniors. After winning the President’s Cup in 1946, the MWJRFL successfully applied for entry into the senior competition.
Manly-Warringah played their first official game in the NSWRFL senior competition on 12 April 1947 against Western Suburbs club, at Brookvale Oval. Their first win was against Parramatta and the club finished their first season in second last place.
Their 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 in 1972. Now in 2007, Manly played in their 15th grand final against Melbourne after defeating North Queensland at the Sydney Football Stadium 28 - 6. Manly were defeated 34 - 8 by the Storm on September the 30th at Telstra Stadium.
After the Super League War of the mid 1990’s, Manly-Warringah agreed to a joint venture with the North Sydney Bears for the 2000 season, as the Northern Eagles. The joint venture collapsed in 2001 and Manly-Warringah retained the Northern Eagles licence until returning to the competition as Manly-Warringah for the 2003 season.
A meeting of the Football Club in 3 June 2004 saw the club members vote for the privatisation of the Football Club.
Cliff Lyons holds the record for most first-grade games for Manly-Warringah with 309 matches; however Steve Menzies has played over 320 first-grade games in a career with both Manly-Warringah and the Northern Eagles. The record for most points scored is held by Graham Eadie with 1917 points and Matthew Ridge has the highest total in one season, scoring 257 in 1995. Steve Menzies holds the top try scoring record with 167, 29 of which were for the Northern Eagles.
The Sea Eagles have never won the wooden spoon in their 61-year existence, the longest drought of any existing club. However the Balmain Tigers (now merged into the Wests Tigers) had a longer wooden spoon drought, from 1911 to 1974 (63 years).
[edit] Emblem and colours
Upon entering the NSWRL, the Manly club took on the colours of maroon and white. These were adopted from the colours of the President's Cup side which had utilised the colours of the local Freshwater Surf Lifesaving Club, which was previously established in the area in 1908.
The club's first jersey was maroon with a large white 'V' on the front. Manly teams were one of the first to feature an emblem, with an 'MW' appearing in the early 1950s. Far from the flashy logos worn today, the Manly‘Sea Eagle’which appeared in the mid 1950s was often confused for a seagull by many, including the media.
Various changes to the jersey were introduced at irregular intervals. As well as the classic 'V' design, the club has broken up the maroon jersey with hoops, bars, large eagles, player numbers, stripes, double stripes, top and bottoms, collars, no collars, reversed colours and even the use of blue. During the 2007 pre-season, the club even introduced a limited number of 65 playing and memorabilia green and white jerseys, for a trial match against the Melbourne Storm.
[edit] Stadium
When Manly-Warringah were accepted into the competition, the local Manly Council denied the club permission to use Manly Oval as a home ground. The council at the time was very pro-rugby union and attempted to stop the rival code spread to the area. Because of this, the club decided instead to acquire Brookvale Showground in order to host matches, which was supported by Warringah Council.
The ground was mostly renovated between 1965 and 1980, including the construction of two grandstands along both the southern end and western side of the ground. In the early 1990s, these two grandstands were connected by the Ken Arthurson Stand. Along the other edges of the ground remain grassy hilled areas, rarely seen in other modern day rugby league stadiums. Many supporters of the club believe it is important to retain these features should any future development of the ground occur given its uniqueness.
Today the ground has a capacity of about 23,000. In 2006, the ground saw its largest average attendance over an entire season, with an average of 15,484 patrons watching each of the club's 11 matches played there. The record crowd at the ground is 27,655, set in the final round of the 1986 season. Since the club started playing in 1947, over five and a half million spectators have visited the ground.
In recent years, Manly have received criticism over the state of facilities at Brookvale Oval. In 2007, Manly stepped up their campaign for government funding to improve the stadium, culminating in a "Save Brookvale Oval" Rally on 21 November. As of December 2007, no money has been allocated by any level of government to upgrade the ground.
[edit] Rivalries
The Manly Sea Eagles have developed strong rivalries with other clubs since 1947 and below are the stronger ones to emerge in the last 60 years:
- North Sydney - The first, and most obvious was the local rivalry with North Sydney. As well as taking many of North's playing stock due to the residential rule imposed at the time, Manly had bought further stars from the North Sydney club including Ken Irvine, Cliff Lyons and Martin Bella. Even the fact that North Sydney are no longer competing in the top league, has fueled this rivalry, with many Bears supporters believing that Manly systematically pushed the North Sydney element out of the Northern Eagles joint-venture and many Bears supporters opposition to the merger in the first place.
- Parramatta Eels - Another rivalry was with fellow debutants from 1947, Parramatta. Not much was made of their clashes until the mid 70s, and in particular the 1976 Grand Final in which Manly denied the Parramatta club a maiden premiership. Further clashes through to the mid 80s cemented a fierce rivalry between many of the clubs' supporters and even led to a beer television commercial featuring the two sides in combat.
- Wests - Also during the 70s the clashes between Wests and Manly were billed as a battle between the "Silvertails" and the "Fibros". This distinction between perceived social classes fuelled many tough matches between the clubs, particularly after Manly would secure top players from the Magpies such as John Dorahy, Les Boyd and David Gillespie. The Silvertails and Fibros monikers first appeared in newspaper stories written by reporter Chris Masters, in the late 70s. Chris is the brother of the then Wests coach, Roy Masters.
- Newcastle Knights - Since the mid-90s, Manly has also built a rivalry with the Newcastle Knights club. In many ways this mirrors the Manly/Wests clashes where class distinction is used to fuel the perceived underdogs, in this case the working class city of Newcastle. In 1997, both Manly and Newcastle fought out the decider, with Newcastle winning 22-16.
[edit] Statistics and records
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For more details on this topic, see List of Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles records.
[edit] Current squad
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For more details on this topic, see Manly Sea Eagles 2008.
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[edit] Notable players
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For more details on this topic, see List of Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles players.
In 1990, the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club recognised their players, past and present, with a team announced to reflect the best squad up to that point. That team is listed below.
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In 2006, a Dream Team of former Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles players was selected by a panel of selectors which featured former Manly-Warringah administrator Ken Arthurson, respected rugby league writer Ian Heads, the club Chairman Kerry Sibraa and journalist Phil Rothfield.
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[edit] Honours
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- 1972, 1973, 1976, 1978, 1987, 1996
- New South Wales Rugby League, Australian Rugby League and National Rugby League runners-up: 10
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- 1951, 1957, 1959, 1968, 1970, 1982-83, 1995, 1997, 2007
- New South Wales Rugby League, Australian Rugby League and National Rugby League minor premierships: 9
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- 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1983, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1997
- New South Wales Rugby League Club Championships: 4
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- 1972, 1983, 1987, 1988
- Pre-Season Cup titles: 1
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- 1980
- KB Cup: 2
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- 1982, 1983
- Sevens: 3
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- 1990, 1994, 1995
- First Division, Premier League[2]: 5
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- 1954, 1960, 1969, 1973, 1988
- Jersey Flegg: 4
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- 1961, 1974, 1987, 1988
- Presidents Cup: 2
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- 1946, 1970
- Third Grade: 1
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- 1952
[edit] References
- [1] Rugby League History; Sean Fagan
- ^ Up until 1994, the top division of the premiership in New South Wales was the New South Wales Rugby League premiership; since then, it has been the Australian Rugby League (1995–1997) and the National Rugby League.
- ^ Up until 2002, the second division of rugby league in New South Wales was Reserve Grade/Presidents Cup/First Division Premiers; since then, it has been the NSWRL Premier League.
- Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players, 1999; Alan Whiticker and Glen Hudson
- ABC of Rugby League, 1995; Malcolm Andrews
- [2] Rugby League Tables and Statistics; Paul Jeffs
- Heritage Report on Brookvale Oval, Mayne-Wilson & Associates; August 2005
[edit] External links
- Official Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Website
- Daily Telegraph - Manly-Warringha Sea Eagles 2007 season feature
- The Manly Wave: Unofficial Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Supporters Website
- The Silvertails: Unofficial Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Supporters Website
- Manly Eaglerockers: Unofficial Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Supporters Website
- MWSE Player Nude On Live TV
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