Under rookie Shute Shield coach Chris DeLooze, Manly spent a big portion of the regular season at the pointy end of the ladder.

But things didn't quite work out for the Marlins in the run towards and during the playoffs, despite the club taking big steps forward across almost every metric.

Overview with Chris DeLooze:

"It’s been a rollercoaster ride over the last 10 or so months, that’s for sure," DeLooze told Rugby News. 

"Obviously it was an incredibly close season and that made it really exciting. If I look back to the start of the season, I think we built into the year quite well. 

"We produced one of our better performances of the season against Gordon before the June long weekend break and things were looking really positive at that stage.