Two-time Sea Eagles premiership winning forward Anthony Watmough is taking on an exciting challenge in 2024 as coach of the newly formed Manly Leagues Sydney Shield team.
The Sydney Shield is the NSWRL’s fourth tier men’s competition, feeding into the Ron Massey Cup for both emerging and senior players.
It's Manly's first season in the Sydney Shield, which kicks off in March. The new team is supported by Manly Leagues, Manly Warringah Rugby League Football Club, Manly Warringah Junior Rugby League, and Manly Warringah Sea Eagles.
We caught up with ‘Choc’ to get an insight into his coaching and what the Sea Eagles Sydney Shield team will do for the Manly District Junior Rugby League.
Q: ‘Choc’ Watmough, the coach! How long has this been in the making?
AW: "I didn’t even think about becoming a coach for a second, to be honest with you. I came in to help run the water. Just spending three days a week with this group of players and seeing them grow as people and footy players, it sort of started to take on its own momentum. With the bond there with the boys, there was an opportunity for me to take on the coaching job, so I accepted."
Q: You played under some great coaches in your career. Is it a case now of looking back on what they did?
AW: “There was, believe it or not, a lot of mental tiredness and stimulation just from thinking if I could do coaching, and what type of coach I would be. But I kept thinking if I put good people around me and each person has a role and they control that role, it makes my job a lot easier to just make sure that the boys are okay and that everything flows. Let the attack coach do his job and the let the defensive coach do his job. If I see anything that I think is not going in the way of the direction of the team, then we will sit down and discuss the best way moving forward to make sure our combined goal is being fulfilled. We are learning on the run. I feel like a fish out of water but that’s the only way to learn, to jump in and learn to swim. I’m actually enjoying it. It’s good fun. I get to watch young men grow. There is now another pathway for kids who thought maybe they had missed their opportunity to play first grade, or to take that next step up. To see kids be able to reach that goal and to be able to help them get to that is the best part about it."
Q: With the Sea Eagles fielding a team in the Sydney Shield, it fills that gap that has been missing for players outside of the Manly Jersey Flegg and NSW Cup squads. How important is that?
AW: “I told a couple of boys who didn’t think Sydney Shield was a pathway to look at (South Sydney’s) Cody Walker. He didn’t debut till he was 27. With this Sydney Shield team, it is in the Manly system. We train with the Manly Jersey Flegg team and we are based out of where Manly train. You are on show. If you go away and play park footy, then you are definitely away from it, where with this, you are back under the spotlight a bit more. You're never too old or you're never past it. This is a good stepping stone, especially for kids that are between Jersey Flegg and first grade to come back and have a good crack. This is another step in upskilling players and if they don’t necessarily make it (Sydney Shield), they can go back and make their club better and also make the Junior League better. All of this can start trickling down now. We want the majority of kids to be local Northern Beaches/Manly kids. But again, we will still have some kids from outside the area. It is a stepping stone for young players who thought they missed out. For whatever reasons over the years, a lot of our juniors have walked away to other clubs and we just want to fix that. Put a stop to that."
Q: How good is it that you, Geoff Toovey, Matt Orford, Brett Stewart, and Jamie Buhrer are just some of the ex-players now involved with the Manly Pathways program?
AW: “You look at other clubs and they have been doing it for a long time. You look at their culture and their DNA. I believe Manly’s culture and DNA can never be re-written. It is what it is. A lot of other clubs seems to have former players on staff and things like that. It seems like now the club is slowly getting back the culture and keeping the DNA within the club in some way. Other clubs do it better than some, but it is good that we are slowly getting there.”
Q: What will a successful year look like?
AW: “Being the first year, it will take time to build and we have to look at it that way. There is genuine excitement around this team. It also means Manly will field 10 teams across all grades in 2024. Whatever we achieve in 2024, we can only improve on. We just want to represent the Sea Eagles well and get Manly fans behind our Sydney Shield team. If we can get a player promoted to the Sea Eagles NSW Cup team or Jersey Flegg next year, that would be fantastic. We just want everyone to enjoy the season."
