NRL 2022: Phil Gould, Tim Sheens go head-to-head for Cameron Ciraldo | Crawley Files
It’s the NRL’s biggest heavyweight showdown, writes PAUL CRAWLEY, but who will win the trust of the NRL’s best coach-in-waiting?
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Pat Carrigan will never be worth the $1 million-a-season Payne Haas is chasing.
But what Carrigan has shown Haas this past week is what real leadership looks like. And why Carrigan ultimately has the potential to become more important to the Broncos’ long-term future than his money-hungry teammate.
A super intelligent young man who was school captain at Brisbane’s prestigious St Joseph’s College, Gregory Terrace, Carrigan is studying physiotherapy at uni. Off the field he is exactly the type of young footballer you’d want leading any club.
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But ahead of Friday’s clash against the Melbourne Storm, it’s what Carrigan does on the field that has now come under the spotlight.
Not because the $500,000 Carrigan is reportedly paid is not enough.
But because the quality of his leadership raises comparisons to how the legendary Gorden Tallis used to inspire the Broncos and Queensland.
Carrigan produced one of the great Origin debuts after coming off the bench in Sydney.
He was best on ground in my opinion, with some suggesting his performance even ranked up with the greatest forward performances ever seen in a Queensland jumper.
Then three days later Carrigan backed it up with another enormous effort against the Raiders, when the battered Broncos were without a stack of stars.
Fox League put a microphone on the 24-year-old Carrigan throughout the game, which was played on Benji’s show during the week. It captured a performance coach Kevvie Walters labelled as brave as any Broncos’ win he’d been a part of.
What it did was give a tremendous insight into the extra dimension Carrigan brings to this footy team, aside from the 131m and 30 tackles he averages a game compared to Haas’s 153m and 27 tackles.
How Carrigan communicated with his teammates, especially when skipper Adam Reynolds was off the field and the experienced Kurt Capewell in the stands.
It was just next level. The constant instructions and encouragement must have been like having a captain-coach out there.
Broncos football manager Ben Ikin didn’t single Carrigan out when he told this next story.
But Ikin reckons the combined footy IQ of Reynolds, Capewell, Ryan James and Carrigan has already been as big a factor as anything in Brisbane’s resurrection this year.
“I remember being on a speaking tour with Craig Bellamy and asking him about Cameron Smith,” Ikin recalled.
“And he said to me and the crowd that Cameron Smith was the best coach at the Melbourne Storm.
“His theory was, ‘He can do everything that myself and all the other coaches can do, but the one added layer he has is that he is actually out on the grass with the players in the game’.
“We have those guys now who get Kevvie, understand his message, understand his game plan, know what he expects, and they drive it in training and in games.
“And Kevvie really empowers them. Patty is one of those.”
Ikin also remembers sitting at the back of the dressing rooms at Newcastle earlier this season and being blown away by Carrigan’s communication skills during a halftime address.
“We’d lost Adam Reynolds on game day and Ezra Mam made his debut, so there was a bit of chaos that day, and we needed leadership,” Ikin recalled.
“And Patty had got himself through a fair bit of work in that first half.
“But not only did he perfectly sum up where they needed to get better, in that halftime break he articulated it the way it needed to be articulated to the group so it would stick.
“What he said the team went out and did and came home over the top of the Knights.”
Which brings us back to Carrigan’s worth to this football team going forward.
At the start of the season it’s fair to say a lot of people privately didn’t even rate Carrigan as a future rep player.
But the way he has performed this year, especially in Origin I, has really transformed opinions.
To the point where people are starting to wonder if Haas continues his chase for a massive upgrade, should the Broncos just go in another direction, and build the culture around players like Carrigan?
University educated and with a bit of a man bun going on, no doubt Carrigan is a far more modern version than the old Raging Bull.
And no, he doesn’t play with quite the same fire and brimstone as the original, nor will you see him punching portholes into opposition forwards.
But what Carrigan does have in common with big Gordie is that he was born to lead.
And after all the heartache of recent seasons that looked to have buried one of the club’s brightest talents, Broncos and Queensland fans are just starting to clearly see Carrigan’s true value.
Gould v Sheens
It’s the heavyweight showdown between two of the greatest coaches and most influential figures of the modern game in the fight for Cameron Ciraldo.
Phil Gould v Tim Sheens – who will win the trust of the young man considered the next best NRL coach-in-waiting?
Ahead of what is being spruiked as the Cameron Ciraldo Cup on Sunday, when the Bulldogs host the Tigers at CommBank Stadium, the game that is going on off the field is every bit as enthralling.
Sheens, of course, has had taken Ciraldo on a guided tour of the Tigers’ headquarters and explained why the club is the right fit for a development coach of Ciraldo’s obvious talent.
And while the Tigers are confident they are in the box seat, they are certainly not silly enough to fall for everything that comes out of Gus’s mouth.
Especially since that mischievous comment where Gould claimed several players were ready to follow Michael Maguire out the door before Maguire was sacked.
Gould has also been keeping everyone in the dark by constantly saying he is yet to speak to any coach about taking over from Trent Barrett, despite everyone knowing full well Ciraldo is also in the Dogs’ sights.
And while Sunday’s game is a wonderful backdrop for showing where each club is placed in the short term, I can’t help but wonder how much the personal history of both Sheens and Gould will play into Ciraldo’s final decision?
Sheens has a reputation for mentoring many young coaches over the years who have gone on to great things.
Gould also has an impressive resume, although the talk about the coaches he has let go always seems to dominate that conversation.
It will be fascinating to see who wins.
Selection Blues
One debate that should not have been even raised this week was whether Daniel Tupou and Kotoni Staggs were standing on safe ground ahead of the NSW Blues team selection for game two.
How in hell does a player get dropped for having a game like Tupou did in Origin I? And Staggs suffered an injury and it was his Origin debut, so he will be better for the run.
But it emerged on Wednesday that both Tupou and Staggs had both been named in Kristian Woolf’s extended Tongan squad to play New Zealand next weekend, with a decision expected before the weekend.
What was puzzling was Woolf’s comment when he said “the last thing either of us wanted was for them to be left out of one squad and them not named in the other”.
But given Woolf had already spoken to Brad Fittler at that point, so where was the confusion?
Surely the players would have known by now who they want to play for, and you’d think Freddy should know who he is going to pick.
If either player wanted to choose to play for Tonga over NSW, good luck to them.
But if they want to play for NSW, neither of them should be fighting for their spot.
Especially Tupou who finished with 25 runs for 195m, had a try assist taken away for a dubious forward pass call to James Tedesco, and his runs out of yardage were enormous.
But now there is this push to get Josh Addo-Carr back in the team on the back of The Foxx’s hat-trick against Parramatta.
To be fair, Addo-Carr was certainly unlucky to get dumped in the first place.
But if it now happens to Tupou, how do NSW ever sell the message of loyalty again?
The debate here is not whether Addo-Carr deserves a recall.
The simple fact is Tupou did not do enough to get dropped, and neither did Staggs.
So why is this even an issue?
Originally published as NRL 2022: Phil Gould, Tim Sheens go head-to-head for Cameron Ciraldo | Crawley Files
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