NRL 2020: Wayne Bennett’s old methods to lead Maroons to victory | Paul Kent
With NSW clear favourites on the back of successive series wins, Queensland has turned back time, going back to old well-worn methods, writes Paul Kent.
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Red Smith does not hang on the wall of too many boxing gyms in Australia, which is about as good an indication as you will get that this new gym in West Gosford is something different.
Smith was an old American sportswriter at a time when newspapers were the celebrity vehicle of the day and Smith, who died nearly 40 years ago, was regarded as the best of them all.
Joel Keegan coached boxing at Umina PCYC for almost 20 years and tomorrow, when he opens his new gym, Complete Boxing, in West Gosford, he will find somewhere to place the Red Smith stories down and wait for curiosity to get the better of his young fighters.
They stand in front of a wall and read stories about old boxers, their education coming without them ever noticing.
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Among the boxing stories Keegan had was one which was not a boxing story at all, about Yankees outfielder Jake Powell who, one night, said something on radio that offended many African-Americans and so in a bid to set it right caught a cab to Harlem and walked into the first bar he saw and told everybody his name and what he said and that he wished to apologise for what he said by buying everybody in the bar a drink.
Then he walked into the next bar and did the same, working his way through the neighbourhood.
Smith carried several themes in the story, as short as it was, but Keegan had it there because below the simple notion that honest mistakes can be made, and repaired, there was accountability and depth of character.
It would have been easy for Powell to tell a newspaperman he was sorry and go publish that and leave it there.
Keegan hopes young fighters would read it and think about it and often the bigger picture emerged.
Keegan knows talent and success are often strangers.
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Whitey Bimstein, an old American fight trainer who also features in the Keegan catalogue, always said training fighters was like putting a nickel in one pocket and taking a dime out of the other, a claim he knows all too well.
So this time last year the Sydney Roosters brought their Harold Matthews team to Keegan because in one of their junior reps, Thomas Deacon, they saw the type of mental strength they want in all their players.
“He’s a good leader and a damn good player,” said Roosters recruitment boss Daniel Anderson, who added coach Trent Robinson is also impressed.
“Robbo has invited him to do some pre-Christmas training with the NRL team.”
Deacon, 18, has trained with Keegan for years. Another Roosters junior rep, Kobe Rugless, 19, also trained with him since before he was a teen.
Both won two National Youth titles under Keegan but have abandoned the fight game to put on weight and make a go of it in the NRL.
Like Deacon, Rugless will also be invited to train with the NRL team before Christmas.
For both young men, both slightly embarrassed about the fuss here, their dream is as close as next week, when State of Origin is played in Adelaide.
That is the goal for every young footballer, that and the green and gold jersey that comes behind it.
With NSW clear favourites on the back of successive series wins, Queensland has turned back time, going back to old well-worn methods.
Coach Wayne Bennett picked a team of tough young men who care little for reputation or talent. He chose character.
It is a field NRL clubs are taking more seriously than ever, the evidence everywhere.
It even took an unusual turn this week when Canterbury announced former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen had joined the club to consult with coach Trent Barrett.
It seemed like an odd appointment, a rugby union coach in rugby league, right up until the moment Hansen spoke.
He knew very little about rugby league tactics, he said in several interviews. But he knew coaching, he added, and he thought he might be able to challenge Barrett’s thinking in areas of coaching that Barrett might not always be challenged.
It certainly appealed to Barrett, who always knew footy and who knew that about himself, but who saw a whole other side to coaching when watching Hansen work with the All Blacks.
“What behaviours are you willing to walk past?” Barrett said, perhaps the one big lesson he learned.
So he pushed hard for Hansen to join him at Canterbury. He realised there was a side to coaching he needed to know better.
“My mindset has probably done a complete turn around in regard to how consistent you have to be with your discipline and values,” Barrett said.
“You have to have a clear idea what your values are.
“You need good players, but you can have good players and shit discipline and it’s not going to work.”
That goes to the heart of Keegan’s coaching, which often begins when his fighters are much younger than when NRL head coaches get them, when character is still forming.
He took Rugless to China as a 12-year-old, sparring with the Beijing boxing squad and giving as good as he got every day.
“Wasn’t flustered, wasn’t out of his depth,” Keegan said. “He never doubted why he was there.”
It was a temperament forged in the gym, and now witnessed at the Roosters.
The same went for Deacon, who he took to England as part of the Australian squad.
“Usually when you go to gyms half the kids you’ve organised to spar don’t turn up, but these gyms, half of them were gypsies, or just tough young kids,” Keegan said.
“They all heard that the Australian team was over and so every gym we walked into they were all there waiting for us.
“Tommy went through the north of England sparring twice a day. They all tried to test him …”
It goes without saying Deacon was up to it.
Character, the gypsies discovered, was permanent. Forged in a boxing ring, where values matter.
***
Hopefully the unprecedented outrage directed at the NRL in the aftermath of the Great Anthem Debacle spells the end of woke politics at League Central once and for all.
The game was left reeling after word leaked Advance Australia Fair would not be sung at next week’s Origin open in Adelaide and then, within hours, the NRL quickly backflipped on its decision.
The big positive to come out of it is the agility of the new administration.
Under the old regime they would have dug in doggedly and resisted reverting back to the right decision, a stubborn trait the old regime had to try and show they knew what they were doing.
They didn’t.
Still, there are some concerns.
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The NRL announced the anthem ban, saying it came with the agreement of the NSW Rugby League and Queensland Rugby League.
The two State leagues believe they were stitched up by the NRL and were told it would happen rather than any discussion taking place.
NSW coach Brad Fittler finally admitted this week that the debate last year, when Cody Walker, Latrell Mitchell and Josh Addo-Carr declared they would boycott the singing of the anthem, was a distraction for the team.
This might be most important of all for players.
Players can make all the protests they like, as is their right, but in a purely sporting sense Fittler’s admission is a warning that players who want to use the jersey to campaign politically might put their future selection in jeopardy.
They can still go ahead if they like, but it raises the consequences of their convictions.
Originally published as NRL 2020: Wayne Bennett’s old methods to lead Maroons to victory | Paul Kent