New Penrith coach wants to ensure best talent isn’t forced to leave

NEW Penrith Emus coach Julian Huxley says his initial focus is building a strong culture at the struggling club rather than worrying about how to win a game.

Former Wallaby and Melbourne Rebels fullback Julian Huxley is trying new things as the coach of Penrith Emus.

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NEW Penrith Emus coach Julian Huxley says his initial focus is building a strong culture at the struggling club rather than worrying about how to win a game.

The former Wallaby invited his Australian teammate Stirling Mortlock to the club’s training session on Saturday morning with last year’s Shute Shield champions, Northern Suburbs.

Huxley has the toughest coaching job in rugby, but says he’s always wanted to be a mentor and that Penrith was a good place to start after the side failed to win a match last season.

“It feels like we’re starting something special,” Huxley said. “Success for me here would be to get good number every week and filling all our grades. And we want to compete each week, so I wouldn’t rule our winning a few games too.

“I’ve already seen things at training that show me we’ll be hard to defend next season.”

Julian Huxley and Stirling Mortlock put the Emus and Norths players through their paces on Saturday morning in a combined club training session.

Huxley knows the football talent in Penrith is there.

He wants to create a club that ensures the best players don’t feel they have to leave for an eastern suburbs side in order to make a representative team.

“They do think staying in Penrith and making a rep side is not an option and my job is to put together a good rugby program where the players are getting better,” Huxley said.

“We’ll be pushing teams if we’re not beating them and giving sides a real fright.”

Mortlock said the Emus players learnt a lot from training with the best club side in Sydney.

“It would have been good to expose the Penrith players to what’s worked for Norths, who had a great season this year,” Mortlock said.

“The reality is a lot of guys in this area have ended up playing for other clubs and that’s the issue.

“Julian has come in and said that’s not good enough and we need to make sure a local talent can play for their local team and go on to representative honours.”