IF CRAIG BELLAMY is the passionate grand final coach, bouncing off the walls of the coach's box as he rolls with the punches at a Melbourne game, then Des Hasler is the inscrutable one.

As the Manly coach's biographer, Thomas Keneally, says: "After a loss he might not feel the same as after a win, but he looks the same. Even pain is kept close to his chest."

Hasler is renowned for giving a lot of himself, but talking little about himself. Like anyone else, he has an ego, but it is buried beneath his love of family, his concern for players and staff, his loyalty to friends and - says one of those friends, Noel Cleal - an eye for investment.

"I was looking for Des one day and his young bloke told me he'd found 20 cents and gone to the bank," Cleal said. "But he's not tight, Des, he's actually very generous. He's just very smart with his money. He doesn't coach because he has to - he's had plenty of other things on the go, still has, running little businesses with success - he coaches because he wants to."

Those are the best coaches - the ones who are driven to do it, rather than the ones who know nothing else but rugby league and see it purely as an extension of their playing career. The man who coached Hasler for most of his playing career with the Sea Eagles, Bob Fulton, was the same, and he saw greatness from the start in the tousle-haired halfback.

"Des was the complete package as a player and I always thought he would make a coach," Fulton said. "He's got a great football brain, he's very astute and very well organised. He crosses the T's and dots the I's with everything he does in life."

But what is the man who is preparing Manly for the club's first grand final in 10 years - against Melbourne at Telstra Stadium on Sunday night - really like?

Hasler politely fends off questions on that subject, but, fortunately, there are others - such as Cleal, who was a teammate of Hasler's and works alongside him at Manly, Fulton and Keneally - who are prepared to provide an insight.

They paint a picture of an intelligent, loyal and compassionate person devoted to his family. He is a regular churchgoer - a Christian gentleman, says Keneally - and although he doesn't mind a beer, he would prefer a cup of tea or coffee. His manners are impeccable and he would go out of his way to help a friend in need.

And he is meticulous. "We were on the '86 Kangaroo tour together and I broke my arm in a game," Cleal said. "I was getting ready to go home for surgery when Des walked into my room. I couldn't use my arm, so he picked up my suitcase and packed all of my clothes into it, folding them very neatly. When I got home, my missus opened the suitcase and said: 'Did a woman pack this for you?'

"Des will always try to help, and during some difficult times for me he's been a really good friend."

Hasler can still bark with the best of them. He has occasionally been known to turn the air blue with a half-time spray at his team, but even under those circumstances he doesn't descend into rant and rave. He doesn't identify problems without offering solutions.

Away from the cameras, Hasler loves a joke, and his off-beat sense of humour has the effect of loosening the players up for a big game.

"The coaching and training staff will arrange things before games," Cleal said. "Jamie [Lyon, the Manly centre] came into the dressing-room before last Saturday's game and, because his nickname is 'Killer', below the peg that had his jumper on it were pictures of a couple of murderers. The guys all broke up laughing. Dessie is up to his eyeballs in all of that.

"The players really warm to Des, and it shows in how much they're prepared to do for him on the field. If they don't particularly like or respect the coach, players don't always make the second efforts - extend themselves - for him, but for Des they do."

As a player himself, Hasler always made that second effort.

Extremely fit and strong, he would almost cut an opponent in half with a tackle, but

often follow it up with an apology - hence his nickname back then, "Sorry".

Hasler is a very private creature in a very public domain, but he has no trouble making it work. Asked why he didn't like talking about himself, Hasler laughed and said: "I've got nothing." That's not what

we hear.