State of Origin 2018: How Brad Fittler’s unorthodox approach won over the critics and triumphed over Queensland
FROM training barefoot to yoga and visualisation — this is how Brad Fittler’s unorthodox State of Origin approach won over the critics and triumphed over Queensland.
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BRAD Fittler plays chess on one of those oversized boards with pieces the size of small children.
It sits down the back of his Terrey Hills property.
Backdropped by a brown barn, a paddock holding two llamas he bought in Dubbo — Barack and Michelle — and beyond that, sweeping bush views.
Call it Freddy’s war room.
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Hayden Knowles certainly does. The NSW Performance Coach explaining how, way back over summer, he was flying down from the Gold Coast every few weeks to play chess with the incoming Blues boss — a fella for whom the jury was still waaay out — while working through every detail of an Origin revolution.
“Because belief,” says Knowles, “is only powerful when you’ve done the work.”
And so as they played, they planned.
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Fittler walking his bishop over to take, say, Knowles’s queen — “Freddy knows his way around that board, definitely” — while talking through everything from yoga, cryotherapy and earthing to how one creates meaningful bonds within the space of 10 days.
“Which is why, for all three camps, we’ve based a lot of the Blues meetings out of Coogee Surf Lifesaving Club,” Knowles continues. “It’s only a short walk from our team hotel, but one which still takes a couple of minutes.
“And Freddy knows that when players are walking, they’re talking. Building relationships. Every decision he makes is deliberate.”
And now, seemingly, genius.
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For NSW Origin, undoubtedly, has become Freddyfied.
Undergoing a ballsy revolution that hasn’t simply secured NSW a series win, but completely overhauled this State’s greatest shame outside CityRail.
And training barefoot, breathing deeply, even assuming the Lotus position … it’s all part of it.
Same deal his decision to roll the dice on 12 debutants, Jimmy Roberts’s defence and that Origin game plan more exciting than a first date.
“So Freddy’s put his neck on the line, definitely,” assistant Danny Buderus agrees. “His reputation, too.
“But when you do all that and get it right … the reward is awesome.”
Isn’t it what?
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Still, you should know that Freddyball isn’t a revolution measured in weeks or months — but years.
An overhaul forged, and refined, not only through who knows how many games on that backyard chess board, but six winters as City Origin coach and four more overseeing the NSW Pathways Program.
For when Freddy hand-picked his dozen debutants for 2018, it wasn’t only deliberate, but with background.
Take youngsters such as Latrell Mitchell and Tom Trbojevic, who exist among scores of Generation Next players who Fittler hasn’t only identified in his previous life as NSWRL Performance Development Coach, but then monitored so closely he could tell you their GPS readings after games.
Or halfback Nathan Cleary, one of five Blues to have proved themselves in Fittler’s City Origin teams.
“And Freddy, he’s got a real knack of understanding the balance between character and talent,” says Paul Sironen, the NSW Origin great who has long been a mainstay of the City coaching staff.
“And that isn’t always an easy thing to do.
“So, yes, you can say the players this year have been picked on form. But there’s also been plenty of talented players over the years who are selfish, who refuse to buy into that team culture.
“And Freddy is one person who can pick that out.”
Elsewhere, Fittler has also spent six years improving his own coaching methods in the City camp — The Daily Telegraph first wrote about his players training barefoot in 2012 — while ensuring players such as the Trbojevic brothers, since schoolboy age, have understood what playing for NSW means.
“So you can talk about Origin succession plans,” says NSWRL chief executive Dave Trodden. “But Brad Fittler, he went and made himself our succession plan.”
And, sure, Queenslanders will argue, quite rightly, that Freddy is now coaching against a Queensland side without Cam Smith, Cooper Cronk and Johnathan Thurston.
But when the Blues were down 10-zip in Origin II, who expected them to win? Or hang tough when a man short with 10 minutes to play and the difference being four?
“But those breathing exercises, they work,” Buderus insists. “You could see our players keep clear heads.”
Could see more, too. “The players believed,” Buderus continues. “Freddy’s greatest strength, it’s his ability to make you believe.”
And, again, because he’s done the work. Not only with arguably the greatest NSW brains trust ever assembled — Buderus, Andrew Johns and Greg Alexander — but working players hard in boxing sessions, making contact drills exactly that and demanding no passes even hint at going forward in ballwork.
Elsewhere, and led by Fittler, the coaching staff walk each morning at 6am, join into yoga sessions and, like the players, don’t drink alcohol once bonding night is done.
Again, all with meaning.
Like walking his team to Origin games. Or having them attend the Randwick races the day before Game II to support former Blue Mark Hughes and his ongoing personal, and charitable, battle against brain cancer.
“Like feeding the homeless, Freddy just sees it as the right thing to do,” Knowles says. “But he also wants players to understand how lucky they are, and how representing NSW, it means they’re a part of something much bigger than themselves.”
And for proof, speak with Mark Riddell, who five years ago was sitting at home listening to the City/Country teams being announced when he tweeted: “I wonder how many stories we’ll hear this week about the game meaning more to Country …”
Minutes later, he received a call. “It was Freddy,” Riddell cackles. “He’d seen the tweet and wanted me to come into camp.
“So I drove over to their team hotel for what I thought would be for an hour … and stayed a couple of years.”
Here was Fittler bringing pride to a Washington Generals jersey.
And as for why his City sides, often underdogs and always travelling into hostile territory to lose, dropped only two of six contests?
“Because Freddy doesn’t overcomplicate things,” Riddell says. “That, and people just want to play for him.”
So has there even been a time when Blues hierarchy deemed something, anything, about this Freddy revolution a little too, err, fruity?
“Only when Freddy wanted to sleep his players in a caravan park,” Trodden says, grinning. “It was four years ago, as City coach.
“We were playing out in Dubbo and Freddy — who, as you know, is all about escaping the fluorescent lights and air conditioners — wanted them sleeping in a van park out at the zoo.
“So he and I, we had a discussion about why NRL CEOs may not want their players staying in caravans or cabins.”
But nothing else?
“No, nothing,” Trodden insists. “Like everyone else who knows Brad Fittler, I believe totally in what he’s doing.”