Anthony Seibold continues to ride the 2025 NRL coaching rollercoaster—and Round 24 has done little to ease the pressure on the under-siege Sea Eagles boss.
Just a month after beating the Melbourne Storm at AAMI Park, Manly’s slim finals hopes were effectively snuffed out in the 26-12 loss to the Wests Tigers, a performance Seibold described as one of the club’s worst performances of the season.
“With everything on the line with regard to our season and to perform like that, way below our best, was disappointing,” he said post match.
“That was a massive step back.”
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“We’ve come off the back of a really tough month of footy where we’ve played three of the top four teams, it’s taken a fair bit of juice out of us, but we feel like we’d prepared pretty well,” Seibold added.
“After a great win away against the Storm we had ourselves well entrenched in the finals, but the last month has been really disappointing.”
“It’s going to be tough now (to make the finals), we’re relying on other results, it means you’re hoping, and hope’s not a great strategy.”
‘I can bullsh*t you, but...’
Pushed for an explanation for the dire performance, Seibold acknowledged the club had seven first choice forwards unavailable, headlined by representative pairing Jake Trbojevic and Haumole Olakau'atu.
“I felt like we got beaten up in the middle today,” he said.
“But we’ve got no-one coming back to save us over the next few weeks.
“We beat Melbourne a month ago, same group of players, so it’s not an excuse.
“We were way off today, we lost the battle in the middle, that’s the reality, I can bullsh*t you, but that’s where we lost it.”
Manly host the Dolphins in Round 25 in what will be captain Daly Cherry-Evans’ 350th NRL game.