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NRL Grand Final preview: Roosters v Sea Eagles


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Tom Symonds' earliest memories of rugby league involve how much he hated Manly. As a child, the Bondi junior and his father, Peter, ''went to nearly every Roosters game'' but ''the one that stands out is when we were up in the stands at the SFS seeing Craig Field pot the winning field goal'' for Manly against the Roosters in the 1997 preliminary final.

''Same as everyone, we loved to hate Manly,'' says Symonds, who, in a twist of rugby league fate, will wear the Sea Eagles jersey in Sunday's grand final against his old mates.

Rugby league players were once rugby league fans. Search the Sea Eagles changing room and it is hard to find anyone who didn't hate Manly as a kid. Brent Kite, a Canberra junior, grimaces at the memory of the 1987 grand final, which he saw when he was six years old. ''We were not fond of Manly at all.''

Even Anthony Watmough of the Narrabeen Sharks, the archetypical one-club man, admits: ''The thing that mainly interested me wasn't following Manly but hating North Sydney. I'd only watch games to see who got in the first stink with the Bears.''

Since the 1970s, it has been the default position for rugby league followers to hate Manly. It persists even in the post-Northern Eagles era, when the club shed its ''silvertails'' tag and went to the brink of extinction. Yet the club's player culture has a rare ability to turn haters into lovers.

The reasons aren't obvious. To the naked eye, Manly are hardly a well-oiled machine in the style of new clubs such as Melbourne, nor have they reinvented themselves as the romantic marketing vehicle that is South Sydney. Manly board meetings are like episodes of The Three Stooges; two directors have court orders against each other, and the ownership is a festering sore between factions. The fans notoriously do not travel. The home ground, Brookvale, pushes all feelings of nostalgia about suburban mudheaps to the limit on cold, wet winter nights. Management has improved in the past two years, off an admittedly low base.

So what is it? What, in a professional age, has turned this old-fashioned club into the NRL's most successful in the past decade?

Symonds, who joined Manly from the Roosters at the beginning of this season, has experienced the alchemy.

''There's the us-versus-them mentality, which they really embrace here. As soon as I arrived, they took me in. Compared to the Roosters, Manly is more of an old-school club. There's a tough, hard mentality, the playing group are experienced and have been together for a while. The routines have been established for a long time. You just feel confident going into tough situations, the boys are calm and composed under pressure. I'd say what makes it unique is that camaraderie and hardness.''

For all its faults, Brookvale Oval is also one of Manly's strengths, he says. ''The crowds at Brookie have a different feel, they're close and the atmosphere's electric.'' Individual voices can be heard, individual faces seen.

Watmough, who made his debut in 2002 when Manly had been merged with Norths into the short-lived Northern Eagles, has become a ''culture-carrier'' for the club. ''When young guys come here, or older players from other clubs, they can't believe how we're always together as a group, always doing something together. Jorge [Taufua] and Peta [Hiku], they've come in the last couple of years, we grab them and if we're having a barbecue they're coming with us. If we're watching a game somewhere, there's at least 10 of us, no one's left out in the cold.

''There are no pockets or factions. If anyone tried to do that, they'd be pulled aside and told to pull their head in. That's what's great about it. There's not a pecking order and no big heads. We're one unit.''

Manly are no longer the rich club cherry-picking other teams' stars, as they were when they engendered cross-town hatred in the 1970s and 1980s. Since their last premiership in 2011, Manly could not afford to keep young stars such as Tony Williams and Will Hopoate. They have revived the careers of journeymen from other clubs: Justin Horo, Richie Fa'aoso and Brenton Lawrence.

It is Sunday's rivals, the Roosters, who have become the cherry-pickers, buying the core of a minor premiership-winning team with this year's purchases of top-liners Sonny Bill Williams, Michael Jennings, James Maloney and Luke O'Donnell. ''They can have the silvertails tag,'' Watmough says. ''They deserve it. We've been through our tough times and have stuck together. We haven't bought the big names and big stars. A lot of guys here have taken pay cuts to stay here.''

But Manly are also as pragmatic as any other club, and they are releasing one of their stalwarts: Kite, who is joining Penrith after nine seasons and 218 games for the Sea Eagles. Kite is ''upset and sad'' to be leaving, and uprooting his family from Mona Vale, where he moved in 2005 and has raised three children. ''As a professional, wherever you hang your hat is your home, but … I'd love it if I could come back here one day.'' The one-time Manly hater is in love with the club. ''Spiritually and culturally this club has been through a lot. Maybe people still hate us, but I hope we've done our bit to change that.''

For Symonds, the change from hate to love had to be instantaneous. He still lives in Bondi. ''Yeah, it's been interesting walking around the streets at home. Last week, people were supporting me because we were playing the Bunnies. This week, they're death-riding me.''

His father, Peter, has ''been getting plenty of texts and phone calls from people torn between supporting me and supporting the Roosters'', Symonds says. ''But between us, as soon as I made the decision to come here, he's been on board … The first game when we played the Roosters, Dad said, 'Don't worry son, blood's thicker than water.' He'll be there on Sunday. In a Manly cap.''