After missing the playoffs in 2016, Manly were the team to beat for the majority of the 2017 season and claimed the Shute Shield minor premiership by eight competition points. Unfortunately for Marlins fans though, the wheels fell off there. Manly were ambushed by Eastwood in the opening week of the playoffs and couldn't match Warringah a week later after losing a handful of key troops to injury. The straight sets exit was far from a fair reflection of Manly’s overall season but that means little to Brian Melrose and his side, who will spend summer contemplating what could have been. Overview with Brian Melrose:  “It was a year of great improvement but I guess we won everything except for the ultimate prize, which is fairly disappointing,” Melrose told Rugby News. “If you are being analytical about things, towards the end of the year there were some things that we could control and some things that we couldn't control. The things we could control were periods li