‘I believe in myself’: Foran appointed Manly interim head coach after Seibold sacking

Manly premiership-winner Kieran Foran believes he can lead the Sea Eagles through their early season turmoil after he was appointed the club’s interim head coach following the sacking of Anthony Seibold.

In a stunning call, the club legend and former Manly playmaker was on Saturday promoted from assistant coach to the man in charge just four months after retiring from rugby league.

Foran will take over a club at a crisis point, having lost their opening three home matches at Brookvale. Seibold was sensationally sacked less than 24 hours after Manly’s 33-16 loss to the Roosters on Thursday night. He was just three games into a new contract with the club, which was meant to run until the end of the 2027 season.

Foran said he got the call-up from club owner Scott Penn and chief executive Jason King on Friday night. “It’s not my nature to say no. There hasn’t been a challenge that I haven’t walked towards in my life or in my professional career,” Foran said.

“I know there’ll be plenty of people out there that would say there’s no chance that I am ready to take control of this footy team, but at the end of the day, I believe in myself. I know what I stand for as a person, my values, my standards, and if the club’s asked me, because they believe I’m the best person to step into that role, then I’m going to take it on.”

Penn said the club were not in a position where they could not wait any longer to make changes after losing their first three games of the season under Seibold, and following a year when the team failed to play finals.

“We lost three games here at home for the first time in 20 years. Not happy about that. It doesn’t meet our club standards,” Penn said on Saturday.

“We could have said, we’ll give you another three games, but we didn’t want to risk it. We don’t want to be zero and six. We need to win now. We need to get on the park and get everyone’s head in the right space, and we feel that Kieran is the best person to do that right now.”

Penn denied the club had made the wrong decision by not letting Seibold go at the end of 2025 season, rather than four weeks into 2026.

King said Foran would be in the mix for the head coaching role when it came up at the end of the year – a job Brad Arthur, Matt Ballin and Michael Ennis are also likely to be considered for.

“Absolutely,” King said of Foran being the head coach. “This is very early days … we’re just talking about an interim appointment, and we do really believe in Kieran and think he is the right person for the job.

“He’s had a terrific career, as we all know, he’s been a real warrior on field. He’s got a great deal of respect, not only in our club, but more broadly across the game.”

Foran said he wasn’t sure you could ever be ready for an opportunity like this, but that he would do his best.

Foran played nine seasons for the Sea Eagles, first from 2009 to 2015, and again from 2021 to 2022.

He was part of the 2011 premiership team alongside former captain Daly Cherry-Evans, and has also spent time at the Warriors, Eels, Bulldogs and Titans.

The 35-year-old is tasked with turning the club around following a disastrous start, and said his immediate focus was to get a full 80-minute performance out of the team.

“We’ve shown so far in the first three games of the season, that we’ve been good in patches,” he said.

“We showed that on Thursday night against the Roosters, we were good for 40 minutes, and then we faded away poorly in the second half. We did the same against Canberra in round one, and then we were disappointing against the Knights.”

Foran said he was never in a rush to become a head coach, but has always considered himself a leader and hoped it would be on the cards one day.

“I’ve always seen myself as a coach, even when I played. I was a captain, I was a leader. I always was invested in the tactical side of the game,” he said.

“I am a student of rugby league, I’ve shown that throughout my footy career, so I’ve always believed that post-playing career, I wanted to stay involved in rugby league and coach.”

The appointment of Foran isn’t too dissimilar to Benji Marshall’s elevation at the Tigers – also a club legend and premiership winner.