Manly announced the re-signing of three of the club's most promising juniors on Tuesday, but their recruitment program took another hit after Kane Elgey turned his back on a move to Brookvale.
Boom Gold Coast playmaker Elgey had been strongly linked to the Sea Eagles and officials were quietly confident they had snared the 21-year-old on Tuesday morning.
However the Titans managed to sneak under their guard to retain Elgey, an announcement they made on their Twitter account on Tuesday afternoon.
After losing representative stars Kieran Foran and Daly Cherry-Evans from 2016, Elgey joins a growing list of players, including Aidan Sezer and Tom Burgess, to reject overtures from Manly.
Coach Geoff Toovey confirmed the Sea Eagles' interest in player like Elgey before he re-committed to the Titans.
"We are in the market for quality players and his name has come up, but I'm not going to speculate on that at the moment," Toovey said when asked about Elgey.
"He is a good player, he has been going very well over the past couple of weeks with the Gold Coast.
"We are in the market for players such as him."
Manly did however re-sign young guns Tom and Jake Trbojevic and Clinton Gutherson to the end of 2017.
Jake Trbojevic and Gutherson have represented the Australian Schoolboys while Tom Trbojevic has played for NSW Under-18s.
Jake has become a mainstay of the Manly side this year after missing all of 2014 with injury.
After making his NRL debut earlier this year Tom is due back in three weeks from a ankle injury.
Gutherson made his NRL debut with Manly in 2013, but has been ruled out of the rest of 2015 with a knee injury.
"This is a tremendous vote of confidence in the future of the club," Toovey said.
After missing out on Elgey, Manly remain on the lookout for two halves for their 2016 roster.
