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Seibold opens up on sacking, DCE defection
Trevor Marshallsea, AAP •  May 12th, 2026 7:50 am
Former Manly coach Anthony Seibold has spoken about the pain of his early-season sacking | Photo: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Anthony Seibold says he was surprised to be dumped by Manly less than a month into the NRL season, but sensed his time was up after the Sea Eagles' round-three loss to the Sydney Roosters.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his March 27 sacking, Seibold - who's now working with AFL giants Collingwood - also paid his respects to Daly Cherry-Evans, saying the Manly great handled his defection to the Sydney Roosters with great transparency and dignity.
Seibold, whose 77-game tenure at Manly included a finals appearance from seventh place in his second season of 2024, said he hadn't expected to be sacked just three games into the 2026 season, after his side had won six of their last 10 games of 2025, including their final three.
But home losses in the first three matches of 2026 - to Canberra, Newcastle, and Cherry-Evans' Roosters - decided his fate, in a sacking he indicated was traumatic.
Seibold said he appreciated the "quick kill" of his termination, though it was still a painful time | Photo: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
"The end of my time, obviously that's always very difficult and can be quite emotional," Seibold told the Seven Network.
"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 (CEO) 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 (and) 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 that's the decision the club made. I said to King, 'I'm a man, handle it well'. And yeah, my gut sort of told me after the game that potentially they might go that way."
Seibold said King had clearly wanted to "put his stamp on the club" after leaving NRL roles to become Sea Eagles CEO in November 2025, but that while his sacking was an extremely difficult time, he respected the way his coaching role was terminated.
"Rather than a long, slow death, I actually respect that it was a quick kill in many respects," the 51-year-old said.
Seibold praised Daly Cherry-Evans for his handling of his departure to the Sydney Roosters | Photo: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
He said he would remember his time at Manly fondly, "although, you never want to go through what I had to do at the end".
Seibold said he also respected how Cherry-Evans handled his departure from the club after failing to reach a new deal.
Despite the impact of his announced defection, Manly narrowly missed the finals.
"Daly couldn't have been more clear in his conversation with me," he said.
"Daly told me, November 1, 2024, that he was going to look around and see whether there was an opportunity to continue playing elsewhere.
"Chez was our captain and I wanted to support our captain. That's why I didn't drop him from the captaincy (or to) reserve grade."
Also praising his replacement as coach Kieran Foran as "an impressive guy", Seibold revealed he was now working in another code.
"The last couple of weeks, I've been doing a little bit of work for Collingwood," he said.
"I know the head coach (Craig McRae) really well. So I've been down there a couple of times and I'm just going to do a small role there for the rest of the AFL season."
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