Following a sustained period of dominance in which the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles made the finals every year for a decade since 2006, the silvertails have endured a prolonged lull only making the finals once in the past four seasons.
While on the whole, the past four seasons have been painful for the Brookvale faithful, seeing many favourite sons walk out the door, this changing of the guard was typified in 2015 in which they lost club legends Anthony Watmough, Glenn Stewart, Kieran Foran, and eventually coach Geoff Toovey.
While the release of such players has allowed the Sea Eagles to rebuild their squad to be much more competitive, this change in trajectory, as well as the consistent squad that came prior, has resulted in more than a few future stars walking out the door.
Here are the top 10 players the Sea Eagles have let go, not re-signed or released since 2010.
The players have been listed in accordance with the contribution they made whilst at the Sea Eagles as well as considering the influence they have had at the clubs they have left for.
9. Glenn Hall
After a slow start to his NRL career, playing 29 games across six seasons with three different clubs, Glenn Hall cemented himself as a quality first-grader during a three-year stint with the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles.
Hall’s three-year stay in Manly would prove to be vastly successful, forming a lethal back-row combination alongside Anthony Watmough, and playing 65 games over three seasons, appearing in two Grand Finals and winning one premiership.
In that three-year 65 game stint Hall would forge a reputation as a hard-man among the Manly forward pack, utilising his surprising pace and notable size to bully opposition back-rowers and playmakers that were unfortunate enough to cross his path.
After a short and largely disappointing stint at the Bradford Bulls in the English Super League, Hall re-joined the NRL in 2011, signing a two-year contract with the North Queensland Cowboys.
This move would immediately pay dividends for the Cowboys, with Hall being named in the Cowboys leadership group and as one of their vice-captains. He would go onto feature 23 times for the Townsville based club in his first season, helping them to their fifth straight finals campaign.
Once again cementing a dynamic back-row combination but this time alongside Queensland representative Gavin Cooper, Hall would go onto play 98 times for the Cowboys across five seasons, signing three short-term contract extensions during his time in Townsville.
An old style second-rower in that he had a larger build and was deployed effectively as a third prop to help the Cowboys win the battle of the middle, Cowboys football manager Peter Parr saluted Hall following his retirement in 2015, saying that “Hally has been terrific for this club on a number of different levels… He’s been a reliable player who has been a wonderful role model for our young players on and off the field.”
At best manlys only let go of average or aging players apart from Gutho perhaps
For mine it was Glenn Stewart…his departure started a sequence of events that drove a stake through the heart of Manly. It’s hard to overlook the significance of this impact on the club.
That only brought forward the inevitable of an aging roster