We'll bury the hoodoo - Des Hasler

[gong_eagle]

We'll bury the hoodoo - Des Hasler

By Ray Chesterton | January 21, 2009
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/sport/nrl/story/0,26799,24940450-5006066,00.html



FOR a man facing enough devils to remake The Exorcist, Des Hasler looks and sounds relaxed. He's watching the cricket while rejecting any suggestion of Manly falling victim to an increasingly lethal rugby league hoodoo - winning back-to-back premierships. Brisbane, in 1992-93, was the last club to win a double in an amalgamated competition.
No Sydney-based team has done it since Canterbury in 1984-85.
Now Manly, 40-0 winners over Melbourne in last year's Grand Final, are trying to defend what is increasingly becoming the indefensible.
Hasler doesn't see it that way.
"We'll be competitive again, I can promise you that," he said. "We have positioned ourselves to win another premiership."
Bolstering Manly's thoughts on 2009 is confidence in their recruiting, highlighted by the signing of giant Parramatta winger Tony Williams.
Manly's recruitment also pulled in Newcastle's five-eighth or lock Chris Bailey, Penrith's Shane Rodney as well as Daly Cherry-Evans and Kieran Foran from the Sea Eagles' Toyota Cup squad.
But it will be Manly's experienced players who will again have to lead the way. And stay healthy.
Compared with other clubs, Manly largely escaped serious injury last year and were almost ignored by representative selectors. Another bonus.
"We are going to experience what other (premiership-winning) teams in the past have," Hasler said.
"Our players will come more under the eye of the representative selectors.
"And we'll have injuries. It's all about how clubs cope with those things."
Hasler, a deep thinker about the game, is an irrepressible critic of the salary cap, saying it promotes mediocrity and destroys attempts to maintain a competitive team.
He advocates a restructuring of the competition and would not be opposed to cutting the number of teams to 12 and increasing the salary cap.
"Some aspects are not working," he said. "Winning Grand Finals has become a matter of timing.
"You get a window of opportunity. That's all.
"In recent years the Dragons had their window. Melbourne had theirs. They're now in a rebuilding phase."

 

[nz eagle]

Well the only actual quote of any significance is

"We'll be competitive again, I can promise you that," he said. "We have positioned ourselves to win another premiership."

he is only saying that we should be able to be competitive again - hes not saying we are going to win it all for sure.