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.

“But when you look at what happened after the June long weekend, we didn’t do anything major differently, but a number of results just didn’t go our way. 

“We said we were going to focus on our defence through the back half of the regular season and by the end, we were the second best side defensively in terms of points conceded. 

“Our tackle efficiency wasn’t quite there, but we knew if we could keep doing what we were doing, then we’d be a chance. 

“There were a couple games where we didn’t execute well and didn’t score tries from our set piece and that cost us, then in our last few matches, our discipline really let us down. 

“When the competition is as tight as it was this year, you have to execute, particularly at the backend of the season and we weren’t able to do that towards the end of the year. 

“Even in the semi final against Norths, if we take one of the opportunities we had, it could have been a different game but we just weren’t able to execute. 

“I feel like we could have beat most sides in most games this year if we played our best footy but we weren’t able to do that and credit goes to Randwick and Norths for doing that and playing their way to a grand final. 

“We played in a second grade and fourth grade grand final as well so the club has done a great job building the depth and a really strong culture throughout the grades. 

“We had four teams playing in a major semi final this year and that’s what we’ll celebrate.”

What needs to happen at Manly between now and round one next year? 

“We’ve already started looking at areas where we can improve. I’ve been doing some professional development and I’ve spent some time recently inside a few NRL clubs to look for a few different things that we could do differently. 

“I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel, but I do think that we need to take steps forward in a handful of areas that we’ve identified through our reviews. 

“I think we’ll have a more streamlined focus on what we need to add at the top end, then we’ll work hard to continue to build and drive the culture that made a big difference this season.”

Which of your players do you think will progress in the years to come? 

“I think we’ve got a few and I’ve reached out to a few Super Rugby coaches to get some feedback for a few of our guys to find out how close they actually are and what they need to do to earn a shot. 

“Hunter Ward is the obvious one. He had a bit of a breakthrough this year but I’d love to see him get more of an opportunity. 

“Without naming all of the others, I think we’ve got quite a few that have big futures ahead of them.”

What can we expect in 2024? 

“There are some changes on the horizon at a few clubs, I think a few other clubs will show loyalty and continue to rebuild,” DeLooze said. 

“Then you’ve got a club like Sydney Uni, who missed out on first grade finals this year and won’t want that happening again in 2024. 

“I think it’ll keep getting closer and closer. 

“When you see what Randwick have done this year, you see how important depth is. We produced probably our best performance of the year to beat them in the second grade semi final. If it wasn’t for that, they could have won all four grade premierships this year. Whoever draws them in round one will have a task ahead of them.”