Ask yourself this....
When a player puts his hand up and says, "Here I am.. Try and beat me !"
As a halfback, when Johns turns up to play he's so far ahead of the rest there's no competition. Sadly, we haven't seen him on top of his game all season, I suspect the arm (that's heavily strapped every week) is an issue.
Outside of Joey, Cooper Cronk turned up every week. Craig Bellamy knew what he was doing when he let Orford go.
I think Des Hasler knew what he was doing when he tried to move MM on too ! With a real hooker, Manly may have been just a little bit better this year, so when they get knocked out of the semies... don't blame Dessie, blame the supporters who wanted to keep MM.