Look, if there's one thing the northern beaches has done well this week, it's serve up a coaching calamity for the ages. Manly sacked head coach Anthony Seibold just three games into the 2026 NRL season, and now Kieran Foran is expected to take over as the interim head coach of the Sea Eagles for the remainder of the NRL season.
Fair dinkum, you couldn't write it faster. The Sea Eagles informed Seibold of their decision in the fallout from Thursday night's 33-16 loss to the Sydney Roosters. That same ground where Daly Cherry-Evans captained the opposition to victory on his old stomping grounds. What a mess.
Foran arrives on the job at rock bottom. Foran played 196 games in two separate stints over nine seasons at Manly, winning the NRL premiership in 2011. He's just retired from the Gold Coast Titans and only came aboard as an assistant coach for 2026, but the New Zealand international retired from the NRL at the conclusion of the 2025 season, after 318 appearances across 17 seasons.
So this is his coaching debut, basically, and he's walking into what might be the worst-timed promotion in recent footy memory. The playing group knows him. The fans know him. But can he fix what looks like a ship taking on water at pace? That's the million-dollar question.
Here's the thing about Seibold's exit: it wasn't a bolt from the blue. It was the Sea Eagles' third consecutive loss to begin the season and ended with home fans chanting "Seibold Out" from the hill at Brookvale Oval. When your own crowd is calling for your head by the 60th minute, you're swimming upstream. But three games? He was handed an extension at the end of 2024 for the 2026 and 2027 seasons, but has now been axed just three games into that new contract.
Manly will wear a substantial payout for this one. In just over three years at the club Seibold had a 48 per cent winning rate with 37 wins, 38 losses and two draws. Not a roaring success, but also not something that deserves the knife quite this fast, especially with half the season still to play.
The real question is whether Foran can arrest the slide. He's got credibility with the old boys and the modern game in his DNA. But assistant coach at Gold Coast is a world away from steering a sinking ship. At the end of the day, Manly's got some work ahead.