Tigers Are Having A Serious Crisis With…..
Manly Sea Eagles coach Anthony Seibold has detailed the reasons why the club signed maligned former Wests Tigers half Luke Brooks.
In a move which has widely been considered the best available for all parties, Brooks finally ended his decade-long stint with the Tigers, where he failed to play a single finals match.
Moving to the Sea Eagles, some of the pressure Brooks felt at the Tigers will be released with Daly Cherry-Evans playing halfback and organising the team, allowing him to play a more natural running game in the number six jersey.
Seibold told NRL 360 that factor, combined with a single performance against the North Queensland Cowboys when the Tigers recorded a surprise enormous win, were the major reasons behind Manly signing Brooks, who said at the time he left the Tigers after being placed under a tight deadline to re-sign with the joint-venture.
“I think when Brooks has been at his best his running game has been outstanding,” Seibold said on the Fox Sports show.
“He has got a great left foot kicking game and I just thought that’s what we needed.
“Cherry-Evans and Trbojevic do all the organisation for us and I just thought if we could free him up from the organisation role and just play a running game and use his left foot kick.
“And he is a brave guy as well. He gets his body in front of the big edge back-rowers, so we just thought it would be a good fit for us and a good fit for him.
“Probably the clincher was I watched a game against the Cowboys at Leichhardt Oval and the Tigers had a fantastic win that night.
“I think it was Brooks’ 200th game and he was outstanding and I just thought he would be great for us as a club and we would be good for him as well.”
Manly Sea Eagles recruit Luke Brooks has admitted to Matty Johns the relief he felt after leaving the Wests Tigers.
Brooks enjoyed one of the best debuts in NRL history when he carved up the Dragons in 2013 and was named man-of-the-match as a teenager.
It immediately drew unfair comparisons with some of the game’s greats and Brooks struggled to live up to the hype at the dysfunctional club.
“I probably didn’t realise at the time, at the Tigers, how much pressure was on me because I was there for over 10 years and all sorts of things went on and coming over to Manly I realise now I don’t have that sort of pressure and I can just go out and enjoy playing footy which is massive for me.
“So far so good and I’m just looking forward to going out there and playing some footy.
The blokes in the spine, Chez, Crokes and Turbo out the back, just their footy IQ is very high and that just allows me to worry about my job and I can just focus on what works for me.”
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