Manly CEO Tony Mestrov insists Anthony Seibold still is safe as Sea Eagles coach, as star back Tom Trbojevic conceded the team had to wear the criticism for poor performances.
The Sea Eagles face a crucial two-week block ahead of their next bye, holding a 6-8 record and with home games against the lowly Wests Tigers and South Sydney.
Seibold has made a number of key changes for Friday night, including shifting Trbojevic to centre and playing Lehi Hopoate at No.1.
Those moves came after the Manly coach held seven-minute meetings with players last week, following underwhelming losses to Newcastle and Gold Coast.
But after saying last week Seibold was “safe at this point”, Mestrov insisted those words should not be taken to suggest the coach is in the firing line.
Mestrov conceded his comment raised eyebrows but said: “At the end of the day it was just words.”
“The thing is, he is safe,” Mestrov told AAP.
“We are all getting behind him, including the board and myself.
“We are backing him, we’ve got a good team, we know that.
“We’ve gone a little bit off track the last couple of weeks. They are games we should have won. But we are 100 per cent backing Seibs.
“I’m excited about Friday, I can’t wait to see what we look like and the energy we can play with in front of our home crowd.”
After their round-19 bye, the Sea Eagles have the toughest run in the NRL with games against Melbourne, Canterbury, a resurgent Sydney Roosters and Canberra.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Mestrov remains confident Manly have a roster that can challenge for the title, with Haumole Olakau’atu and Taniela Paseka still due back from injury later this year.
“Obviously it’s unacceptable the two losses and the fashion we played in. But we have a real opportunity to atone for that,” Mestrov said.
“I look at it as a real opportunity the next two weeks, and then we’ve got a bye.
“We need to turn things around, there is no doubt. Every team that is towards the bottom or outside the eight, there is some talk of pressure.
“Everyone knows that if you put a couple of performances together you’re back in the eight or around abouts. We know we can do that as a team.”
The comments came as Trbojevic said the team had to absorb criticism after three wins from their past 10 games.
“It’s frustrating, but in saying that, we’re the reason it is happening,” Trbojevic said.
“We’re not playing good enough footy. Unfortunately we play a game that is judged on how we perform for 80 minutes each week and we haven’t been up to standard.
“We completely understand that is where it is coming from. We can’t change the past, we’ve accepted that. We can only change how we react to it.
“We have 10 games to go after it and decide our own fate. We have to win a lot more games than we lose to play finals footy, and that’s where we want to be.”
© AAP
