Newcastle Knights coach Adam O’Brien comes clean on coaching box blow ups
After calling the Knights perennial underachievers and saying their coach was humiliating himself in the box, Paul Crawley was expecting a blow up when he interviewed Adam O’Brien. What happened next stunned him.
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Adam O’Brien has an admission to make. He’s embarrassed by his coaching box blow-ups and he’s not trying to be a Craig Bellamy clone.
That’s why Newcastle’s rookie coach has employed a behaviour expert to try to help him change.
It’s the type of public honesty you never hear from an NRL coach, but I got a sneak peek of it this week.
The truth is, I’d never spoken to O’Brien until Wednesday.
But I had spoken about him on NRL 360 on Tuesday and expressed my opinion that his constant anger and frustration wasn’t a good look for him, or setting a good example for his players.
I also spoke about the need for Newcastle to stop making excuses for being a perennial underachiever and finally repay the faith shown year after year from its long-suffering fans.
The Knights haven’t played finals footy since under Wayne Bennett in 2013, which is the second longest playoffs drought behind Wests Tigers, who they host on Saturday.
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After a start to the season that promised so much, the fear is this could be another year of missed opportunity for an organisation I believe has learned to accept mediocrity.
So after spitting that out on Fox, I naturally assumed I was in for another blow-up when I saw O’Brien’s name pop up on my phone after it had been forwarded to me by Danny Buderus. Instead, I was left shocked by some raw and very personal admissions.
‘I’M EMBARRASSED’
Straight off the bat, O’Brien conceded: “I completely agree with you. You are not going to get a whinge out of me. You are right.”
From there he went on to explain why. I will point out first that O’Brien was made a life member at the Storm before he left the club that has long been rated the NRL’s benchmark. So that’s what they think of him down at Melbourne. And after working at the Roosters as Trent Robinson’s assistant, players the calibre of Cooper Cronk have nothing but praise for the man now charged with trying to lead the proud town of Newcastle out of rugby league oblivion.
But O’Brien obviously felt compelled to be honest enough about his passion with his own fans to pick up the phone and explain exactly what drives him as a coach, along with where he needs to improve.
“I have actually got a guy working with me to try and help me with my behaviour up there. It’s embarrassing,” he said.
“I don’t want to be like that but it is ingrained in my nature.
“Growing up the son of a cranky old publican, I have got a competitive, fierce nature about me.
“It is not learned behaviour through Bellyache or anything like that. But I can assure you I am not like that 24/7. And I have to get better because I am asking them (the players) to keep their competitive nature. But we need to be calmer on the field and make better decisions, and I have to be a symbol of that.”
‘SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT’
He also spoke from the heart about his players. In particular skipper Mitchell Pearce, who he maintains is the right leader to take the club forward.
O’Brien revealed how Pearce really drove the standards during the COVID-19 shutdown, making sure all the players stayed on top of their daily routines, workouts and diet.
O’Brien was also adamant Pearce was not who he was pointing the finger at following the shock loss to Canterbury, when he accused his team of having a “sense of entitlement”.
I saw that comment as a direct stab at the club’s culture, and given it’s the leaders who drive that, I assumed O’Brien was having a crack at Pearce and probably Kalyn Ponga and David Klemmer to boot. But O’Brien said the comment came from frustration that he had hadn’t jumped on some tardy attitudes.
He said in respect to Newcastle’s culture: “We were always looking ahead, that it will be right down the track. But we can’t even look two days down the track. We need to get today right.
“If we continually talk about developing or rebuilding … I just thought we have to strip that out of the joint and it has to be ‘get today right’. And I am hard on standards.
“But I used the wrong words in the public forum about the ‘entitlement’.
“It didn’t have anything to do with those three boys (Pearce, Ponga and Klemmer). Yes, they are the leaders that need to be driving it. But what I was getting at is that earlier in the year I saw everybody was dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in terms of their week and getting every day right.
“And I had just seen slowly that there was stuff left around for others to clean up and younger guys needed to be reminded about doing their recovery properly. There was a number of things. And I made a mistake because I really knew about it before the Bulldogs but I didn’t jump on it.
“I stuck to my mantra about winning the day. I should have addressed it. I was concerned it was too close to game time. It was the day before the game. So I thought ‘just get to this game and then address it’. But that is probably why I let go of my emotions (after the match), because I was probably more disappointed with myself.
“None of those guys mentioned were involved in any of that stuff. It is their responsibility to drive it but they wouldn’t have been aware of it, staff made me aware of it. We had some really honest conversations the next day after that press conference and I gave them the examples.
“And a few of them went, ‘you need to tell us every time this happens because we weren’t aware of it’. So it is more me than anything here.”
REPAYING THE FAITH
A loss against the Tigers on Saturday could drop the Knights out of the top eight by the end of the round, but what can’t be understated is the Knights have had a shocking run of injuries. Eight regular starters are out.
And along with Canberra they have had to travel more this year than any other teams because of the COVID restrictions. But O’Brien won’t allow his players to use that as an excuse. He wants to see them repay the faith of the fans who had to sit through driving rain to watch the Bulldogs debacle.
“They have been rock-solid for us and we have let ourselves down being a bit disappointing in front of them, apart from the round one game against the Warriors,” he said.
“They have kept their skin in the game. They have kept their memberships, and we have not played on a dry track. It has been raining every time and they still keep turning up.
“I reckon that was the other reason my emotions spilt over. I have empathy for them and I know how important the team is to the town. I just felt like we’d let them down.
“I’m a work in progress but I have a passionate and competitive nature and I believe in the club. I just want us to be the best we can. And part of that is me taking this on board. It is feedback and about me getting better.”
What you couldn’t ask for is more honesty.
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Latrell proves he’s the ONE to lead Souths’ backline
ONE of the biggest talking points at the start of the season was how Latrell Mitchell was never going to make it as an NRL fullback.
And how silly old Wayne Bennett had once again exposed why he was washed up as a coach for trying to convince us otherwise.
Hasn’t that conversation gone awfully quiet now?
While it’s probably a bit early for old cranky-pants to start beating his chest, there is no doubt left in my mind that Mitchell has the potential to be something very special wearing the No.1 jumper. Some of the touches he produced in South Sydney’s come-from-behind win over St George Illawarra last round just highlighted again what phenomenal silky skills he has.
In truth, Bennett reckons there is still probably close to a 50 per cent improvement to come from Latrell in respect to his fullback play.
But remember Mitchell only turned 23 a couple of months back, and only started playing fullback this season. To put it in perspective, James Tedesco is 27 and the Roosters champion didn’t get this good overnight.
Which is why I’m convinced Bennett is going to be proved right for backing his judgment when almost everyone else said it was madness to move Latrell from the centres.
The involvement of the fullback in the modern game probably makes him the most important player on the field.
And if Latrell can gets his workrate up and offer a bit more energy and intent with his runs, he really could be the difference between the Rabbitohs doing something this season, or just making up the numbers.
When he was playing in the centres, sometimes the game could very easily pass him by. Now he doesn’t have a choice but to get his hands on the ball.
And the more he does that, the more dangerous Latrell is.
TOUGH LOVE WILL HELP FLANAGAN
Trent Robinson’s decision to drop Kyle Flanagan for the Sydney Roosters’ clash against St George Illawarra on Thursday night again highlights why standards — as much as the class of their roster — set the reigning premiers apart.
Coming up against the club his old man is the assistant coach at, you can only imagine how tough it would have been for young Flanagan to be demoted this week. But any NRL coach will tell you it is such a tough slog for young halves to stay up over the full course of a season – and Flanagan will come back from this a better player for some tough love now.
Which is also why I reckon the Roosters still have the most improvement left of any of the top-eight teams.
While Penrith’s opening half against Manly was as faultless as we’ve probably seen this season, the Roosters are nowhere near their best just yet.
And that’s scary.
WIDDOP RECALL IS HARD TO FATHOM
I struggle to comprehend why St George Illawarra would even be considering bringing Gareth Widdop back in a mooted player swap with the out-of-favour Corey Norman.
It’s not because I doubt the quality player Widdop is, or what sort of bloke he is.
But it’s all to do with the circumstances that led to his departure — and how that impacted on the team’s current predicament.
If it wasn’t for Widdop asking for an early release, the Dragons never would have gone chasing Norman in the first place which got their salary cap all out of whack.
Yet now the Dragons are prepared to cop that — and probably carry a stack of money on their cap to offload Norman — just to bring back a player who will turn 32 next year.