Former Manly coach Anthony Seibold has opened up on the emotional end to his time at the club, admitting he “felt something was going to happen” following the Sea Eagles’ loss to the Roosters in Round 3.
But Seibold is already embarking on his next challenge, this time switching codes altogether. He revealed on The Agenda Setters: Rugby League that following a small break from coaching, he has since linked up with AFL powerhouse Collingwood in a consultancy-style role for the remainder of the 2026 season.
Seibold has a pre-existing relationship with Craig McRae that dates back many years.
“The last couple of weeks, just been sort of doing a little bit of work for Collingwood there,” Seibold said. “I know the head coach (McRae) really well. I’ve been down there a couple of times and I’m just going to do a little small role there for the rest of the AFL season.”
Seibold was sacked just three games into the season. It was revealed last year that there was a strong connection between the pair, as well as other Australian sporting coaches getting together once a month over Zoom to discuss challenges and areas of improvement in their respective sports. This also included former A-League coach John Aloisi and current Australian cricket coach Andrew McDonald.
Seibold reflected on the difficult nature and feeling he experienced after losing his job, but said he respected the club’s decision to act quickly rather than allow speculation to linger.
“The end of my time, obviously that’s always very difficult and can be quite emotional,” Seibold said. “I didn’t think I’d be sacked after Round 3, but the actual response after the Roosters game. I spoke to Jason King after the game and I just said, ‘look, I feel like there’s a lot of commentary and a lot of noise around my role’, the club and I felt as though either the club needed to come out and back me and support me or the club needed to make a decision to move me on. My gut sort of told me after the game that potentially they might go that way.”
A fractured club upon joining back in 2022, Seibold touched on the challenges of getting Manly back on their feet, particularly after the much-publicised Pride Jersey saga.
“It was a challenging time for the club, they’d just gone through the Pride jersey saga,” Seibold said. “That first year was all about bringing the group back together and connecting the group. And I felt as though we did a really good job with that.”
One thing Seibold was quick to pump the brakes on was the impact former club captain Daly Cherry-Evans’ shock exit had on the playing group at Manly. Seibold admits that Cherry-Evans “couldn’t have been more clear” back in November 2024, that he was going to look for the opportunity to continue playing Rugby League away from Manly. A side he’d played 352 first grades games for since 2011.
“Chez was our captain and I wanted to support our captain,” Seibold said. “I didn’t drop him from the captaincy; I didn’t drop him to reserve grade. I saw the model that, Souths did with Adam Reynolds, you know, when he had signed for the Broncos. I thought that was the best thing for our club to keep Chez as our leader. We won six of our last 10 games with Chez as captain playing some really good footy. We won our last three games by over 120 points. So we actually finished the season in reasonable shape. I can’t talk for Chez’s decision to move on. I can only say from my perspective, I think it was really important to look after the captain and show him some support and move on with things.”
Seibold has since watched on as the Sea Eagles have won five of their past six games under rookie coach Kieran Foran.
“I’m happy for the club,” Seibold said. “My ego takes a little bit of a hit when we play three games and they’re doing so well now. I want the group to do really well. Foz has got some really good people around him, like Peter Jennell, the GM of footy, Aaron Greaves, who we brought in from the AFL, Jimmy Demick, John Clark, Noddy Kimmorley, those types of guys are really quality human beings, and they would be putting a lot of support around Kieran. Because the challenge for Foz will be when you lose a couple of games, when you’ve got to drop a player, when you’ve got to tell a senior player, “Hey, look, we can’t sign you anymore”. They’re all the challenges, but he’s obviously made a great start of it.”
Now having coached South Sydney, Brisbane and Manly, Seibold did hint towards wanting to make a return to coaching in the NRL.
“I’m not sure,” Seibold said. “I’ve enjoyed the bulk of my time coaching, and I’ve had some great experiences. But one thing I feel like I am sold on, I’ve loved Rugby Leagues since I was a little boy. I love coaching and I want to keep involved in the game in some capacity.”
