They are the Liberaces of league. Like Madonna and Maradona, Pele and Prince, these worthies need one handle only. One is plenty. Think Joey and Matty, Rabbits and Gus. Think Beaver, Benji and Braith. Think Sterlo and his mate the great Fat Man.
And think, of course, of Manly coach, the funny, mad bastard called Des. Yes, Desmond John Hasler; a one-off, a singular cat, a weirdo in a good way. He’s an enigma. Private and a showman. Remember when he ripped a door off the hinges at Parramatta Stadium? People who knew thought setup – unscrewing hinges is a thing Des’d do. The man maintained innocence. Blamed the door. Blamed Channel Nine for filming it. Said he would pay for the hinges. Betcha the club did. Classic Des.
He doesn’t talk a lot about himself, yet there’s lots talked about him. He doesn’t like things written about him, yet he’ll read every word. Bet he reads this. He’s musical. He’s a regular at Sunday night mass. He keeps odd, mad hours. He’ll ring friends at 1am and ask, “Did I wake you?” He has craggy features below Farrah Fawcett’s bangs (Google her, kids). He’s familiar though we don’t really know him – few do. Thomas Keneally wrote his biography in ‘93. His main takeaway was: “Des is very private”. What an insightful read it must’ve been.
Until recently he was a fixture at Narrabeen’s training track with his footy shorts and bowed legs, barking away, revving the cement truck, circling wagons, instilling the mentality of the siege. Des is like a mad, fun uncle: quick with a quip; protective; and clearly tough, he’ll put a boot up your arse because he loves you. Players will run for a man like that. They will work and sweat and bleed for him. He’s got their back, and they know it.
When the Brett Stewart saga broke ten years ago after the Eagles’ ill-fated season launch at Manly Wharf Bar, Des took control. He spent a hot minute deciding that Stewart was innocent; that it was an extortion attempt by a grub, the father of a girl who’d accused Stewart of sexual assault. A man can tell if a young bloke is lying, particularly those with whom one spends every day. Des was a teacher once – he knows young blokes. He knows they aren’t sociopaths or criminal masterminds; they’re largely guileless, innocents. Boys.
Des went with Stewart to the police station, to court, out in public. Just as he fronted the press after the rainbow jumper saga, it was probably the chief executive’s job. Hasler made it his. No arguments. The Stewart family will never forget it.
Des played 256 games for Manly and won two premierships (’87 and ’96). He went on Roo Tours in ’86 and ’90. He was so good he forced Phil Blake out. And Blake was ridiculous. In 1983 Blake scored 27 tries. Hasler was a halfback without much of a pass. But Bob Fulton knew: he was fit; he was tough; he would run all day. And he would never give up. Ever. Blokes kept fit in the ‘80s – but Des was next level. He was on the Wayne Pearce train. Outside the boxer and Bulldog Billy Johnstone – who would go on to be a conditioning legend – there weren’t a lot on the train.
“Des was the hardest, fittest bloke I ever played with,” Paul Vautin says. “He was my favourite bloke to play with.” In the gym, Des would hang off the roof, doing isometrics, or something, blokes didn’t know what it was. It was just Des, hanging off things. Des was working his core before it was called one. He was ripping off Pilates-style moves before it was a thing. He was Spiderman in Manly kit, inverted, mullet dangling. He’d get on the bike machine, ride flat out for a minute forwards, then flat out a minute backwards.
He’d get onto the field, hop for a hundred metres. Hundred right leg, hundred left leg. People would gaze out the dressing shed windows – what the hell is he doing? He wrung every ounce of ability from 75 kilograms. He was a greyhound with muscles. There’s an apocryphal story that Des would sprint up Brookie Hill after games. It’s never been confirmed. But it’s telling that people who know Des could not discount it. “Sounds like something he’d do,” said a mate. As Ivan Drago said of Rocky, he is a piece of iron.
Since he came back to Manly at the end of 2018, the Sea Eagles’ board gave him free rein. He’d got them to the top doing it his way. They figured he could do it again, even if he did leave both his previous coaching positions – one at this very Manly – acrimoniously. “Dessie doesn’t play political games very well,” says a Manly insider. “He positions himself as the boss of ‘his’ area and that’s how he operates. That’s been challenged twice and out the door he’s gone twice.”
Around rugby league and on the Northern Beaches particularly, tales of Des abound. They’ll tell you he loves country-and-western music and once sang in a band. They’ll tell you he would travel by train from Penrith to Circular Quay and busk for change. After he’d earned a few bob he’d catch the Manly Ferry.
His wife drove a Toyota Land Cruiser; he’d give her $5 for petrol. He once picked up 50 cents in the race at Brookvale and put it in his footy sock. He arrived at a function late because there was free parking after 8pm. He remains mates with parents from his kids’ school. He’s involved at church. He’s mates with Thomas Keneally. He helped Zali Steggall train for the Olympics. He taught at St Pius X at Chatswood and also St Augustine’s next to Brookvale Oval.
Des’s brother Danny Hasler was a teacher at St Augustine’s, too. An elite-level long-distance runner, he died of brain cancer in 2013. At the funeral service, Des stood up and sang a song they’d sung together as kids. Unaccompanied. Unadorned. A beautiful, plaintive lone voice in a church…
Des is a devotee of The Art of War by the Chinese warlord, Sun Tzu, written in 500BC. He’s always re-reading it, picking out gems. He was tipped onto it by former Wallabies coach Rod Macqueen, who lived near Des in Collaroy. But as it was for Shane Warne (who thought the team bus was more useful than John Buchanan was as coach), for most of Des’s players, the war book is so much malarkey. They barely know Clive Churchill, much less Winston.
But they went to war for Des. They knew he’s a Manly Man. They respected his hardness. And they like the mad old buzzard. Paul Vautin reckons he’s mellowed. “He’s not ripping doors off hinges any more,” Vautin says.
Enjoy that story? Help author Matt Cleary tell more like it by shouting him a coffee at www.beacheschampion.com.au