NRL 2022: Clubs playing dangerous game with battling coaches, Paul Kent

Several coaches are running out of time to save their jobs, but their clubs might be playing with fire by putting them on notice, writes Paul Kent.

Like bad coins, struggling coaches are hard to get rid of, albeit somewhat more expensive say the accountants.

Making it doubly hard is they are usually a little smarter than those who employ them, and considerably more cunning.

As eight NRL clubs head into their final game of the season this weekend word is already going around about who needs to show substantial improvement next season and whose time as head coach is fast being determined by early season successes, whether they know so or not.

With coaching being the cut-throat business that it is nowadays, more than a few are nervous.

Some clubs are subtly justifying their own governance by fuelling these rumours that the head coach is on notice, suggesting they are willing to grant a start next season to see if the coach can turn it around.

Yet it could be their great mistake.

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Anythony Griffin may only have 10 Rounds in 2023 to prove why he should stay on as Dragons coach. Picture: Getty Images.

A coach on notice is one of the great failings of management in this game but it remains astounding how often clubs will put a deadline on success on their coach, whether they make it public or not, and believe it will come up trumps.

Already some are saying that St George Illawarra coach Anthony Griffin has only 10 rounds or so next season to show signs of life in the Dragons or his time will be done and the Dragons will be in the market for a new coach.

Similar words are being expressed about Newcastle’s Adam O’Brien and Manly coach Des Hasler, which might have a deeper undercurrent than just performance. A power grab is currently on at the Sea Eagles, and Hasler is unwilling to secede.

The dangers of a mid-season deadline run deeper than whether a coach will continue to meet his mortgage payments.

The obvious counter argument to this right now will come from hardy Tigers supporters who a year ago were having the same conversation now that the Dragons or Knights or Manly fans are having, after hearing Maguire was gone over the summer, then retained, then had to show some early season improvement to retain his job.

They will argue the pain from this year could have been avoided if only the Tigers had made the decision over the summer instead of waiting 12 rounds in to sack Michael Maguire.

Sacking Maguire mid-season was a disaster, the Tigers able to win only one more game in the 12 games since, compared to the three won under him.

It basically did nothing else but put the Wests Tigers rebuild off a further year.

The Tigers were only delaying the inevitable when they held off sacking coach Michael Maguire at the end of 2021, and now they could win the wooden spoon.

Another problem with giving coaches mid-season performance numbers, which suggests a mid-season sacking, is that the coach will often front load his season in a bid to save his job.

Coaching was always a temporary business. Rent, don’t buy, Jack Gibson used to say, and nothing has changed.

Coaches generally have a vision that stretches for exactly the length of their contract, blind beyond that.

If a coach is under threat of an early season sacking you can bet a bad coin he will put all he has into whatever the length of term he has to get it right.

It’s a subtle shift and often missed, but the smart ones know it can mean the difference between winning five of the first eight games, which could be enough to call off the hounds and survive the season, or winning two from eight and having fans at the gate with pitchforks and torches, the committee behind them in full support.

And the long term damage can be significant.

Legendary coach Jack Gibson used to say rent, don’t buy... and nothing has changed.

An early season deadline will often see a coach push ahead their training cycles so their teams begin their season a little more forward in conditioning.

It gives them a start on their opponents, who have spent summer training for a 25-round competition, and often sees them jump out of the blocks with a few surprise early round wins.

By the end of the second third of the season, though, they are generally running on fumes, burnt out from the early effort with little to give for the remainder.

Another quiet but damaging side-effect is that coaches have often pressured injured players to return earlier in the season than their injury requires, perhaps taking a needle to get through games, when the best recovery was rest.

While the injured player needs more time sidelined to get himself right, the coach privately knows he doesn’t have that long.

It’s a tricky world, coaching, and the ever weakening administration, with boards increasingly at the mercy of volatile members and their emotional votes, mean the boards are more twitchy than ever to move on the coach before they get moved on themselves.

If for nothing else than it saves their job.