Geoff Toovey: 'It’s very easy to pull club culture apart'

Mention Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles and several names spring to mind – Ken Arthurson, Bob Fulton, Rex Mossop, Steve Menzies, Des Hasler and one Geoffrey Toovey. Perhaps more than the rest Toovey embodies the essence of the Manly club. Born and raised on Sydney’s northern beaches, he starred as player, captain, assistant coach and then head coach for the Sea Eagles for nearly 30 years. But that association ended abruptly at the end of the 2015 NRL season when he was brutally cast aside as coach, a victim of inner club politics more than his team’s failure to make the finals that year.

Arguably more than any other NRL franchise Manly has always been a tight-knit operation and protected its own. This parochial club, often targeted as the most hated side in the competition by rival fans, has only had two non-Manly players coach it in its 60-year history – Graham Lowe and Trent Barrett. It is because of this that the controversial decision to sack Toovey and replace him with an outsider in Barrett by club boss Bob Fulton, who Toovey so successfully served as loyal captain at Brookvale Oval in the 1990s, so deeply cut apart the Sea Eagles fanbase. It was a broadside at the club’s history and traditions, a stark reminder that sentiment or loyalty has no place in professional rugby league.

Fast forward 17 months and Toovey is finally back in rugby league, albeit far from the beachside suburb where he made his name. Tapped up by former Manly coach Lowe and former Manly reserve-grader Andrew Chalmers, who bought struggling English outfit Bradford Bulls, the 47-year old has landed in West Yorkshire. After going into administration three times in the past four years Bradford are now in the Championship, the division below Super League, and face a mammoth task to avoid relegation this year after starting the season on minus-12 points.

“It’s like everything I suppose, unfortunately things were out of my control [at Manly],” Toovey says. “You make the best of what you’ve done in the past, I really enjoyed what I did. I was looking forward to the next chapter in my life. I was probably treading water a little bit with what I was doing, waiting for an opportunity. Fortunately for me this opportunity came up and they were very keen for me to have a look at it, so here I am having a look. Hopefully things will work out for everyone.”

On the surface it might seem a strange choice for Toovey, especially for someone who had a weekly spot as an analyst on Fox Sports’ NRL coverage and a comfortable job as accountant. He was also a contender for the vacant New Zealand Warriors coaching position last year and for the Australian job after Tim Sheens left. But on deeper inspection it makes perfect sense. Toovey has always been a fighter, a battler. He has long loved a challenge, from his playing days as a pint-sized David tackling a team of Goliaths where he was the smallest man on the field. And this challenge makes coaching the Newcastle Knights look like being in charge of Real Madrid.

Toovey admits trying something different out of his comfort zone appealed. “The one regret I’ve had in my career is I didn’t get to come and play over here and enjoy the culture and lifestyle,” he says. “When it came to that time in my career they had gone to a summer comp so it was you couldn’t do both at the same time. And by the time I had finished my career in Australia my body had given out on me, so I couldn’t come over here. This is an opportunity here for me to enjoy that football culture, without playing, but further down the line coaching… It is a great club, great history and I think it would be great to play a part in its resurrection.”

Visa issues have prevented Toovey from taking over the Bradford coaching position just yet, with the former NSW and Kangaroos utility restricted to an advisory role. But the Australian has been in the UK for a month now, observing and soaking up what he can from behind the scenes.

“What’s happened here was obviously very difficult for the fans and the staff,” he explains. “But they’ve been sticking in there, showing some true rugby league character, I suppose, and going above and beyond in keeping the club alive. With the new owners coming hopefully it provides some stability for those people.”

With his NRL background Toovey might appear unsuited to leading a club in a league with part-time teams and semi-pro players, where matches are held in grounds that average mostly less than crowds of 2,000. But he has done the hard yards before at Brookvale Oval, where he was captain when Manly went bust at the end of the ARL/Super League war and were forced into the ill-fated merger with North Sydney. He was also part of the coaching staff when the Northern Eagles went under and the cash-strapped Sea Eagles reformed in 2003, and would eventually build into a golden age at the club under the leadership of Hasler.

“I’ve been at a club that’s been broke and resurrected itself twice and both with great histories, great cultures at the club. This is no different. The only difference here is the promotion and relegation system where there is a bit of instability about what can happen to the club going forward. That’s the challenge but I think we’re getting the right people and players in place and we’re going to give it a good shake.”

Bradford’s 2017 season has started poorly, as expected, but after losing their first two matches they have responded by stringing back-to-back victories together. They remain bottom of the Championship ladder, eight points adrift of winless Dewsbury and still favourites for the drop, but there is some slim hope they can avoid the inevitable.

“Once you’ve been promoted or relegated it’s very hard to stay up to get back, particularly if you’ve been in a certain level of the game for a few years. The fans dry up, the money dries up and it makes it very difficult because you haven’t got those resources. Once you are promoted it’s hard to stay up because all the other clubs have greater resources. So it’s a bit of a catch-22.”

For Toovey it is a chance of a new beginning, a new adventure. His axing from Manly was one of the most tumultuous periods in that club’s history but the former halfback has no regrets on his time there. “No I couldn’t have carried myself in any other way that I did. Maybe there’ll be some books written later on in life, but that’s life. You’ve just got to move on.”

The Sea Eagles start the 2017 NRL season this Sunday when they host Parramatta at home, while on the same day the Bulls take on the London Broncos. Barrett’s Manly side is hoping to end a two-year run of missing the finals. “They’ve recruited some good players, they did last year as well, I’m sure they just need to find a bit of form,” Toovey says. “At this time in the year they’re like every other NRL team – everyone thinks they’re a chance of winning the comp. And you know what? They probably are. Every team has a chance.”

The Manly club now is vastly different to the one he left at the end of the 2015 campaign with a huge turnover in players, staff and officials. Few have been spared in a ruthless rebuild aimed at getting the Sea Eagles back to the top of the NRL tree as quickly as possible. “The sad bit is all those people were very successful there and they’re no longer there either, it’s very hard as people know to build a club culture,” he says. “It takes a long time but it’s very easy to pull that culture apart.”

Despite his painful exit Toovey will always be linked to the club, in one way or another. He admits the maroon and white are still somewhat close to his heart: “The club is itself, the brand is, yes. But things have changed a little.” For now his future lies away from the breaks of Freshwater and Dee Why and on the moors of Yorkshire. Older, wiser and perhaps rejuvenated after time out of the NRL fishbowl, Toovey has plenty left to give rugby league: “Every day is a lesson in life, whether you’re in business or in a sporting business. You’ve got to adapt and move forward. You’re constantly learning no matter what it is. The older you get the wiser you get about everything.”