Special bonus column: our man on the ground at the Des Hasler presser

As if you didn't know the author of this gibber lives within spitting of Brookvale Oval. In a special report, Matt Cleary takes you inside the room as Manly coach Des Hasler says sorry - to everyone

Des Hasler swept his Farrah Fawcett locks from his forehead and arched his fingers into a steeple like a famous lecturer at Harvard Polytechnic and addressed a mass of media in a tight little room the back of Brookvale Oval.

Then he tiptoed through a minefield in a culture war.

He was impassioned. Into it. There were apologies all round. He was Oprah Winfrey with the cars. You get an apology. And you get an apology.

He quoted a Harvard political scientist, a mate with Autism and Mahatma Gandhi.

It was nutty professor as performance artist. It was odd, on occasion. You wondered did he have a vision of his projected self.

Yet it was real. It was no sterile, corporate, box-ticking exercise. It was heart-felt. It was compelling. It was even a bit cool.

And it was as good as the club could do given circumstances that trumped news of a bunker howler, a gouging allegation and a half-time toilet vape by a tired old Titan.