FORMER London Broncos duo Tony Mestrov and Anthony Seibold are working in unison to get Manly Sea Eagles back among the NRL’s big hitters.
One-time forward Mestrov, who played for the capital club between 1995 and 1997 and again in 2001, is now chief executive at the side from Sydney’s Northern Beaches, where he started a career which also took in South Sydney Rabbitohs and Wigan.
And he has just extended the stay of ex-Canberra Raiders pack man Seibold, who turned out for the Broncos in 1999 and 2000, then captained Hull KR before finishing his playing days, and cutting his coaching teeth, at Celtic Crusaders, the Welsh club he helped reach Super League.
The 50-year-old, whose first head-coach post was at South Wales Scorpions in League One and who won plaudits as team chief of Souths but had a tough time at Brisbane Broncos, took the reins at Manly two years ago, a matter of months after Mestrov, 54, was made chief executive.
While Manly were inconsistent in his first year at the helm, finishing twelfth, they were seventh last season, making the play-offs for the first time in three attempts.
Now Seibold, who had a stint working on the England rugby union team coaching staff under Eddie Jones, has extended a Manly contract which initially ran to 2025 through to 2027.
“Under Anthony, we made the finals for the first time since 2021. We can build on this and Anthony is the right person for us to do that,” said Mestrov.
“The hard work he has done with the players and the staff, from both a playing perspective to the strong culture he has established here over the past two years, has been outstanding.
“He has really driven the ‘Manly Way’, which has become really powerful, and you can see the excitement and passion within our community again.”
Seibold said: “Manly made a really big call two years ago to give me the role and I feel like I’ve repaid that.
“We made some giant strides last season. Out of the other seven teams in the top eight, we beat six, which was equal to anybody in the competition.
“So what we’ve shown is that we can beat any team on our day, but for us to go to the next level, it’s about reliability and repeatability.”
