Contrasting fortunes of Des Hasler and Anthony Seibold illustrate NRL coaches’ gamble
Anthony Seibold has gone from coach of the year to a four-letter word in Brisbane. Des Hasler went from unemployed to homecoming saviour. Anyone who thinks being a coach is simple, think again, writes PAUL KENT.
Opinion
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A year ago Des Hasler could not coach and Anthony Seibold was about to be named Coach of the Year.
This is as good a reason as any to put the coaching ambitions aside. In coaching, everything can be upside down.
Brad Arthur needed to prove his worth through the first dozen rounds this season before the Eels were convinced they should extend his contract.
Ricky Stuart had to make the finals to keep the wolves from the door, which is no understatement. They were there pawing.
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Wayne Bennett has always said good players make good coaches. It sounds self-deprecating and it mostly is but Bennett knows it is the deeper truth.
Bennett must have been wondering if there was another way as he looked through the wreckage of last Friday’s loss to the Sydney Roosters when, without his leader Sam Burgess, the Rabbitohs found no answer to the ruthless machine that is the Roosters.
Stuart understands exactly what Bennett meant and spoke as much after Saturday’s win over Melbourne, which puts the Raiders in the preliminary final.
“When you’re playing against talent you need talent,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what game plan you’ve got, what strategies you’ve got, if you haven’t got talent it makes it so much harder.”
But if talent is the first step towards success the first week of the finals has shown coaching can’t be far behind.
Last weekend underlined some of the most extraordinary coaching performances seen in years.
Hasler sent his Manly team out against a far more talented Cronulla outfit, but one that has seemed to have forgotten its identity.
The Sea Eagles had no right to win but found a way anyway and now advance to Friday’s final against South Sydney. With no bigger off-season signing than Brendan Elliott Manly has risen from 15th last year to at least the second week of the playoffs.
Arthur has gone one better. The Eels have climbed from last place last year to also reach the second week of the finals, at least, and did it with the most stunning finals performance in memory.
The Eels finally exposed Brisbane, beaten 58-0, as a team built on sand.
The far more talented Broncos are the game’s greatest irony. They treat themselves as winners when they have won nothing.
They have every advantage but no steel. Hardship does not agree with them.
Manly has done far more with much less than the Broncos. All season long they have responded to Hasler’s consistency of message.
It is hard to determine whose coaching job has been finest.
The votes are already in for this year’s Dally M Coach of the Year but, as happens most years, it can almost be guaranteed the judges would like to cast their votes again after the first week of finals.
Craig Bellamy lost Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater in successive seasons but still won the minor premiership and, impressively, finished with both the season’s best attack and best defence.
The Roosters are in better shape than any team has been for years to go back to back as premiers.
Trent Robinson has timed the Roosters’ season perfectly. Last Friday they got the jump on South Sydney and took them out of the contest quickly and the Rabbitohs were unable to find a way back.
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Bennett has seen his premiership aspirations crumble slowly through the twin perils of injury and suspension.
He has had so many disruptions he has to go all the way back to May to see even a resemblance of what his best team looks like. He swapped Adam Doueihi from fullback to wing last Friday and watched the Roosters treat that edge like a new road.
“I made a mistake,” Bennett said after the game. “I thought he would handle that, but it was maybe a bridge too far for him at this stage of his footy career.”
Bennett is keeping his team together with rubber bands and paperclips.
It’s all coaching.
Originally published as Contrasting fortunes of Des Hasler and Anthony Seibold illustrate NRL coaches’ gamble