Brisbane Broncos coach: Darren Lockyer will not apply for role
Every time the Brisbane Broncos needed him, Darren Lockyer delivered - but there’s one job the club great has flatly refused.
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Brisbane board member Darren Lockyer has ruled out joining Paul Green and Kevin Walters in the battle for the Broncos job and revealed he has no desire to ever coach the NRL’s richest club.
Lockyer’s stance comes in the wake of Cowboys champion Johnathan Thurston overlooking his former mentor Green and calling for Walters to be installed as the coach to rebuild the embattled Broncos.
Broncos chairman Karl Morris has vowed to cast the net wide in search of Brisbane’s next coach and Lockyer’s name has been mentioned as a possible successor to Anthony Seibold.
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Since his retirement in 2011, Lockyer was viewed by Broncos powerbrokers as a coach-in-waiting in much the same way Storm champion Cameron Smith is now regarded as a future NRL mentor.
Influential Brisbane figures believed Lockyer, the most capped player in the club’s history with 355 appearances, could parlay his cool head, experience and tactical acumen into coaching the Broncos to another premiership.
But as the Broncos embark on one of the most critical assignments in their history - finding the right man to stabilise the club after the tumult of the Seibold years - Lockyer has gone cold on coaching.
“I have no aspirations to ever coach the Broncos,” said Lockyer, who skippered the club to their most recent premiership in 2006.
“Some people thought I would one day coach the Broncos but I’ve gone into business interests and with my commitment to my family, I can’t devote all my time to rugby league and being an NRL coach.
“My view is that I don’t want to be too hands-on at the club in a coaching capacity.
“I would love to see the Broncos going well and I will always jump in where I have to if I‘m asked but from my perspective, I’ve decided coaching is not for me.
“I have other business stuff going on that I enjoy, so it (coaching the Broncos after Seibold) is not something I would chase.”
Lockyer already has a variety of important roles at the Broncos. Aside from sitting on the Broncos board, he is part of their recruitment-and-retention committee and was engaged this year to provide leadership training to select Brisbane players.
Lockyer said any prospective coaching candidate must consider the unique pressures of calling the shots at the NRL‘s richest club.
“I am not naive enough to think that you can do the head coaching role at the Broncos without doing an apprenticeship first,” he said.
“The moment I retired, a massive weight came off my shoulders.
“To go back into head coaching, that‘s amplified, so I feel life for me is a lot more balanced without coaching.
“The expectations of being the captain of the Broncos is hard enough. Coaching in the NRL, and particularly at the Broncos, is not for the faint hearted and you have to have a real desire to want to do it to do it well.”
Lockyer’s former Queensland Origin teammate Thurston has enormous respect for Green’s coaching ability, but believes Walters’ understanding of the Broncos’ culture makes him the standout choice.
“Kevvie has a strong connection to that club (the Broncos), he won six premierships (as a player) ... that‘s his coaching resume put right there,” Channel Nine commentator Thurston told the network.
“I think the Broncos are starting to see cracks in the club with their fans and Kevvie is man who can bring it all together and be the successful club they were in the 1990s.”