Kieran Foran has opened up on his first day as Sea Eagles head coach, admitting the last three days have been a “whirlwind” but he’s turning Manly’s fortunes around “as fast as we can”.
Anthony Seibold as sacked by Sea Eagles powerbrokers on Friday evening, with Foran spending the night on Fox League’s coverage of Friday Night Football.
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The news sent shockwaves across the NRL, but Foran was particularly ”stunned” by the news, and what followed was even more surprising for the Manly great.
“Yeah I was honestly stunned, like you said I’m only new to this. I retired late last year and I came here as an assistant coach under Anthony,” Foran said on Fox League’s Sunday Ticket.
“Look I’ve worked as hard as I can to become the best assistant coach I could have possibly become for the club and to pass on all my experience and knowledge to the guys that I’m coaching.
“But at the end of the day when I left Fox late that night and Jason (King) and Scott (Penn) reached out to me and explained the situation, what had gone on and that they felt that the best person to step into the interim role was myself.
“Yeah, it really did take me by surprise mate and I had to have a moment to I guess process and then think about what I was going to do.”
Kieran Foran speaks to Fox League after his first day as Manly’s interim head coach.Source: FOX SPORTSInterim Manly Sea Eagles Coach and former player Kieran Foran pictured at his first training session with the Manly Sea Eagles team held at Brookvale on Sunday Morning.Source: News Corp Australia
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But it didn’t take long for Foran to make his decision, committing to taking the reins at a club he explained had a special place in his heart.
The 35-year-old has played 196 games for the Sea Eagles, winning a premiership in 2011 — but arguably faces the biggest task of his career for the remainder of the 2026 season.
“I touched on it yesterday, I said look I’ve never been one to step away from a challenge based on the fear of an outcome or what might be and I know I’m early on in my coaching journey,” Foran said.
“But I love this club. This club’s been wonderful to me throughout the course of my footy career.
“There’s wonderful people involved in it and when they asked me and felt that I should step into this role, that I was the right person for it, I couldn’t say no. It’s a big task.
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“It’s a huge, huge job in front of me. But look, I’ve got a great footy team here. There’s a wonderful group of players.
“I’ve got great experienced staff around me, guys that have been assistant coaches and coaches for a number of years to help lift the load and help me in the areas that I’m new to and hopefully together as a collective effort, we can turn this round as fast as possible.”
Sunday’s session marked Foran’s first day as interim head coach, and he admitted it was daunting driving to the club’s headquarters in a new role.
“I was pretty nervous driving into training this morning at about 5:30, I got in and then had a number of meetings and addressed the playing group at about quarter to nine,” he said.
“Along with Jason King, look the boys have been great mate obviously like I said it’s been a bit of a crazy 48 hours for the players themselves as well.
“Finding out the news about Anthony and then obviously myself taking over but look it was business as usual to be honest mate we got through the meetings this morning.
“The boys did some gym and then we went out onto the field and got through some skills to prime ourselves for tomorrow’s big session.
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“So yeah it’s sort of just being we crack on with it, we get on with what we’ve got to do to prepare as best as we can for Thursday night’s game.”
As he did during his time as an assistant, Foran still was on the field first, putting out the cones for the day’s drills.
And he will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
“I’ll always be putting out the cones. I enjoy it. It’s what I’ve been doing the past four and a half months,” he said.
“Yeah, it was nice to get out there, actually, and just set up some skills, drills for the boys.
“And, mate, they were in really good spirits. It was important that we got the day off to a good start and the week. And, yeah, hopefully tomorrow we can take it up a notch.”
Interim Manly Sea Eagles Coach and former player Kieran Foran pictured at his first training session with the Manly Sea Eagles team held at Brookvale on Sunday Morning.Source: News Corp Australia
While Sea Eagles fans may be hopeful of some sweeping changes, Foran will begin by stabilising the environment at Brookvale before he stamps his mark on the squad.
“Look it’s been a whirlwind 48 hours not just for me, but everyone involved at the club,” Foran said.
“And at the end of the day there’s a lot of processes and structures that have been put in place by Anthony Seibold over the past three-and-a-half years that he’s done a really good job with.
“So initially I’m not looking to change too much at all, it’s obviously been a disappointing start to the season for the club and for everyone involved and my job now is to try and turn that round as fast as we can.”
As for any team changes, Jason Saab will be sidelined due to suspension for Manly’s Thursday night clash with the Dolphins — but no further shifts are expected.
“I’m not 100 per cent sure at the moment… I don’t think there’s going to be too much change,” Foran said.
“It’s not the week to make wholesale changes at the moment, keeping cohesion at the moment is a critical part to that.”