NRL 2022: Why Craig Fitzgibbon should win Dally M coach of the year
Yes, Ivan Cleary has achieved another superb season. And so too, Todd Payten. But neither began the year with a halfback that had never played one minute, let alone a game of NRL, at halfback.
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Outside of a loyal gathering of tweed jackets with leather elbow patches, had anyone heard of rugby sevens player Lachie Miller?
Suddenly, after just six NRL games, Miller is a shot to play fullback for the Sharks in a finals series.
Royce Hunt made his NRL debut in 2017. He had never started in first grade before this season.
Now he can’t be dropped.
Hunt’s transformation — in his fitness, time on the field and in defence — has propelled him from seasonal benchwarmer into the starting front row for Cronulla for the past 12 consecutive matches.
Sunday against Newcastle will be lucky number 13.
Yes, Penrith coach Ivan Cleary has achieved another superb season. And so too, Todd Payten to resurrect the Cowboys.
But neither began the year with a halfback that had never played one minute, let alone a game of NRL, at halfback.
Indeed, both Cleary and Payten have premiership-winning halves driving them into the finals.
Everyone agreed Hynes was a superb footballer at the Storm. But a dominant halfback in the NRL?
Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon, the only person that mattered, saw enough to believe.
Hynes has now played 22 games, steered Cronulla into the top four and is on the verge of claiming the Sharks’ first Dally M medal since Preston Campbell in 2001.
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This time last year, having managed a stop-start 14-games, a spit-firing Matt Moylan was retained by Fitzgibbon ahead of a Golden Boot winner in Shaun Johnson.
Consider the magnitude of that call for a coach in his first season where reputations and careers can be determined in that first 12-months.
Yet Fitzgibbon went with his gut.
He looked at the new six-again rules and wanted two halves willing to run.
Both former fullbacks, Hynes and Moylan are natural runners.
What Fitzgibbon also added to Moylan was resilience.
Moylan may have been a more elusive, free-wheeling player in the early days of his career at Penrith, but he has never been more committed.
He has never played tougher, be it by dropping his shoulder into the bigger man running at him, or scrambling to make the last tackle in the line.
Some wanted Sharks prop Andrew Fifita to retire last year after managing just six games and 10 tackle busts for the year.
With a shattered larynx, busted knee and crushed confidence, Fifita turned up to Shark Park in summer to be greeted with an arm around his shoulder from the coach.
The result? 19 games, 38 tackle busts and a packed home crowd chanting his name.
If you haven’t picked the theme yet, here it is. Fitzgibbon is the Dally M coach of the year.
If players make coaches, Fitzgibbon has already shown in one season that he’s a coach who makes players.
A rookie in his first season, Fitzgibbon has turned a so-so football team into a premiership contender by improving his players, one by one.
In doing so, Fitzgibbon has catapulted Cronulla into the premiership discussion.
Siosifa Talakai has gone from a bench utility to a centre that was chosen in the NSW State of Origin team.
Blayke Brailey has more than doubled his try-assists and line break assists from last season.
Going from five to 11 and four to 14 respectively in the key attack stats from this time last year, the outstanding hooker has also cut his missed tackle count down from almost three to two per-game.
Laying down a marker for Brailey, the best hookers in the game, including Damien Cook, Api Koroisau and Harry Grant, have an average missed tackle rate of 1.7, 3.3 and 3.2 respectively.
Why isn’t Brailey in the discussion for a World Cup ticket?
Cameron McInnes could’ve been excused for a quiet year following a knee reconstruction.
He’s played 22-games with only the frequently targeted Brailey making more tackles than McInnes.
Gun winger Ronaldo Mulitalo trained in the centres over summer.
It was — and is — as much of a legitimate option as it was about developing the winger’s skill-set.
Do yourself a favour and watch Mulitalo in games swap in and out of centre, sharing the responsibility, while also, befuddling the opposition.
For the first time in his career, bustling centre Jesse Ramien was on NSW coach Brad Fittler’s radar this year.
Cronulla skipper Wade Graham had concussion issues and then in the trials collapsed with a ligament tear in his ankle.
He’s now played more games than last season and made more line-breaks on the back of Fitzgibbon lauding Graham as a “second coach on the field.”
Voting for the Dally M awards doesn’t include what happens in the finals series.
All votes are entered at the conclusion of this weekend.
A chance to finish top two by beating the Knights, Cronulla have finished second just three times in their history.
In 1973, 1978 and 1997. They made the grand final in each of those years.
Whatever happens from here, Fitzgibbon has shown he’s the deserved Dally M coach of the year.
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