Geoff Toovey

Geoffrey Toovey
Personal information
Nickname Tooves[1]
Born (1969-06-17) 17 June 1969
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Height 168 cm (5 ft 6 in)
Weight 70 kg (11 st 0 lb)
Playing information
Position Halfback, Hooker
Club
Years Team Pld T G FG P
1988–99 Manly Sea Eagles 238 35 0 0 140
2000–01 Northern Eagles 48 100 0 5 0
Total 286 135 0 5 140
Representative
Years Team Pld T G FG P
1990–97 NSW City 4 0 0 0 0
1990–00 New South Wales 16 0 0 0 0
1991–98 Australia 13 0 0 0 0
Coaching information
Club
Years Team Gms W D L W%
2012–15 Manly Sea Eagles 105 61 1 43 58
As of 05 September 2016
Source: Rugby League Project

Geoffrey "Geoff" Toovey (born 17 June 1939 in Sydney, New South Wales) is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and former player of the late 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. He is the former head coach at the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles of the National Rugby League. He was educated at Davidson High School. Toovey played halfback for the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, then played as a hooker later in his career at the Northern Eagles. He played 286 first-grade matches in all, and captained Manly to the 1996 ARL premiership and the 1995 and 1997 grand finals. He played in 13 international matches for Australia between 1991 and 1998. Toovey is the former head coach of Manly-Warringah. He is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the board of the National Roads and Motorists' Association.

Representative career

Toovey debuted for the New South Wales Blues in 1990, and was selected for the Australian teams end-of-season tour of Papua New Guinea in 1991 where he made his test debut for the Kangaroos, playing in all four games on tour including both tests against the Papua New Guinea Kumuls.

During the 1995 season at the commencement of the Super League war, Toovey again played State of Origin for NSW, though the team suffered a 3-0 loss to Queensland who were coached by his former Manly team mate Paul Vautin. With the non-selection of Super League players, Toovey was recalled to the Australian team for the first time since 1991 in the 3-0 Trans-Tasman series win over New Zealand in 1995. At the end of the season in which Manly finished as minor premiers but beaten Grand Finalists, he was selected in the Australian squad for the 1995 Rugby League World Cup, playing in the Kangaroos 16-8 win over host nation England in the World Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. Although selected at halfback for the game, coach bob Fulton only played Toovey in the position during scrums and utilised his speed off the mark by playing him at dummy-half in general play with Andrew Johns (named at hooker) assuming the halfback role.

In the 1996 State of Origin series, Toovey and Johns continued with the now commonplace positional and role interchange they had used successfully in the World Cup. It was here that Toovey showed himself to be a world class runner out of dummy half, as well as his ability as an exceptional grass-cutting defender.

In 1997 Toovey captained New South Wales to a State of Origin series victory and played a Test match against a Rest of the World side.

In 2000 he played at hooker in NSW's clean sweep against Queensland.

Captaincy

At the height of the Super League war Toovey was honoured as Australian Test captain for the 1996 one-off Test against the Papua New Guinea Palais (the ARL loyalist side).

Post playing

Toovey retired at the end of 2001. He became an accountant by profession and a member of the board of the NRMA.[2]

Coaching career

He joined the Manly coaching staff when Des Hasler took over as coach in 2004 and in 2011 was appointed as Manly's head coach from the 2012 season, after Hasler first announced he would be moving to the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs for the 2012 season.

Toovey's first competitive match in charge of the Sea Eagles was their defeat in the 2012 World Club Challenge.

In the 2012 Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles season, Toovey's first as an NRL head coach, the club came to within one game of the grand final but lost to Melbourne.

In the 2013 NRL season, Toovey guided Manly into the Grand Final against the Sydney Roosters. In a controversial game in which there were many contentious decisions made by referees Shayne Hayne and Ben Cummins, the Roosters ran out 26-18 winners in front of 81,491 fans at Sydney's ANZ Stadium. During the year, Toovey was fined AU$10,000 by the National Rugby League following his press-conference after Manly had lost their Round 23 game to South Sydney. Toovey had been unhappy with a number of refereeing decisions during the game, won 22-10 by the Rabbitohs, and had famously called for an investigation.[3]

His outbursts were later referenced in a parody of Redfoo's music video, Let's Get Ridiculous, which was performed by The Footy Show panellist Darryl Brohman. Both the music video and parody were filmed in Manly, New South Wales.[4]

References

Sources

External links

Preceded by
Paul Harragon		 Australian national rugby league captain
1996 		Succeeded by
Alan Langer
Preceded by
Des Hasler
2004–2011		 Coach
Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles
2012–2015 		Succeeded by
Trent Barrett
2016–
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