The Agenda Setters Rugby League on Channel 7 Anthony Seibold takes up AFL role with Collingwood after being sacked as Manly head coach – Former Manly coach Anthony Seibold joins The Agenda Setters: Rugby League to chat exclusively about his sacking from the club, and reveals he has taken up an AFL coaching role with Collingwood.
CP: First and foremost, how have you been over the last couple of months and what have you been getting up to?
AS: Well, I had a bit of a break, obviously, you know, after getting moved on after round three is, you know, a little bit of a surprise. But, yes, I just hung with the family for a couple of weeks and, yeah, and took a breath. And then the last couple of weeks, just been sort of doing a little bit of work for Collingwood there. And I know the head coach really well. So I’ve been down there a couple of times and I’m just going to do a little small role there for the rest of the AFL season.
DR: Seibs, can you just take us back, round three, you said it came as a surprise. The Roosters get you on a Thursday night at Four Pines Park. You wake up the next morning.Did you know that you could be looking for the exit door from Manly after that match? And how did that unfold as far as ultimately departing the club?
AS: Yeah, well, firstly, I do want to say that I really enjoyed my time at Manly. I came to Manly in 2022 after working with England Rugby and it was a challenging time for the club. They’d just gone through the Pride jersey saga.
That first year was all about bringing the group back together and connecting the group. And I felt as though we did a really good job with that. The end of my time, obviously that’s always very difficult and can be quite emotional. I didn’t think I’d be sacked after round three, but the actual response after the Roosters game, my gut feeling sort of said that something was going to happen. I spoke to Jason King after the game and I just said, look, I feel like there’s a lot of commentary and a lot of noise around my role, the club and I felt as though either the club needed to come out and back me and support me or the club needed to make a decision to move me on. And, you know, that’s the decision the club made. I said to King, you know, I’m a man, handle it well. And yeah, as I said, my gut sort of told me after the game that potentially they might go that way.
AW: But it’s always not very nice at the end when you lose your job. How did you find out? Did Scott Penn ring you up? Or Jason?
AS: Scott’s always been very good to me, Scott Penn, the chairman. And, you know, Tony Mestoff, who got me to the club, he finished up his time just before Christmas and without a CEO for about six or eight weeks there.
And then, you know, Jason coming in from the NRL and, you know, I feel like he wanted to set his way of doing things. And that’s the role of a CEO. They’ve got to set the tone for the group.
You know, I felt as though, you know, working with Jason, I think he was keen to put his stamp on the club. And I do have to say this, like, rather than a long, slow death, I actually respect that it was a quick kill in many respects. So I’ll always remember my time finally at Manly, although, you know, you never want to go through what I had to do at the end.
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The Agenda Setters Rugby League on Channel 7 Anthony Seibold takes up AFL role with Collingwood after being sacked as Manly head coach
