Dibb tells Manly to punt Des right now
THE man who sacked Des Hasler at Canterbury says Manly need to do the same thing immediately.
Ray Dib was Bulldogs chairman when Hasler departed in bitter circumstances that are strikingly similar to the current power struggle on the northern beaches.
“They should do a payout now and move on,” Dib said, “Too much damage has been done to relationships. Once you lose trust there is no going back.
“It’s in the best interests of everyone. Just cut it off now because there is no hope when the two parties can’t work together.”
We can reveal Sea Eagles owner and chairman Scott Penn and CEO Tony Mestrov have privately spoken about protecting the club from the turmoil that engulfed Belmore in 2017.
The dispute at Canterbury finished up with Hasler getting a $1 million payout in an outof-court settlement.
The Bulldogs, since Hasler’s departure, have not finished higher than 12th on the ladder.
They are only now showing signs of recovery.
This is why Manly is taking the power away from Hasler.
“He’s been head coach, head of recruitment, head of football and CEO for too long,” said one Manly insider. “Des wants to control everything.”
Manly keep looking back to some horrible mistakes that were made at Canterbury in recruitment while Hasler was running the show.
In 2015 they foolishly offloaded Michael Ennis (for Michael Lichaa) and Dale Finucane to Melbourne Storm.
The next year they let Shaun Lane and Damien Cook go. In 2019, two years after Hasler left, Morris brothers Josh and Brett were forced out by salary cap pressure that was created from Hasler’s big backended contracts.
These included underperforming Greg Eastwood and Tony Williams, who were earning $800,000-a-season towards the end of the contracts.