Robert Craddock: Why Kevin Walters is for the Broncos players, not the board

Kevin Walters is not as slick as some of his competitors and his humility could be seen as a weakness, but the Broncos board can be assured of one thing - the players will follow him into battle, writes ROBERT CRADDOCK.

Kevin Walters is the man for the Broncos job.

You could call it the “Kevvie Conundrum”.

It’s why the Broncos board feel they cannot win and cannot lose if they appoint Kevin Walters as their new coach.

Walters stands out as the right man for the right time – a calming, uniting force in a stormy sea who would buy five months of happy vibes in the off-season before kicking off a new era.

It’s as sure as anything in life can be that some rivals for the job will provide slicker interview presentations than Walters who, partially because he is such a humble soul, is not a super salesman of his own talent.

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Kevin Walters would be an appointment made for the players, not the board. Picture: Getty Images

It’s not the Ipswich way but Walters deserves this job. And should get it.

When he talks to the board Kev will just be Kev but he can wear that as a badge of honour for the Broncos have had enough of trying to mix white-collar rhetoric with blue-collar players.

Walters’ natural habitat is the dressing room not the board room where he will soon have to pitch to wealthy corporate executives, who love big words and novel plans in a game where, perversely, most of the top coaches actually do the same things and the ones who win often have the simplest plans.

What may not come to light in the interview is Walters biggest trump card – the fact that, as we have seen in the past four tightly contested State of Origin series, players are fond of him and hate letting him down.

They’ll have a crack for him and that takes him 80 per cent to the place that Anthony Seibold could never reach because of the tardy motivation levels of his playing group.

You never sensed the team was truly playing for Seibold so nothing else he tried ever really mattered.

In a sense, if the Broncos board plump for a “Kevolution” they cannot lose because they will give the fans, the old boys and the sponsors the man they want.

If he failed, the board would not be marked hard in the way they have been after the Seibold disaster.

The board could say, hand over heart, to the entire Broncos fans base including the old boys: “Hey, we gave you the guy you wanted. Don’t bag us.’’

But if Walters succeeds the fans would not necessarily see this as a significant tick for the board.

Instead they might crow “why didn’t Kev get the job when Seibold got it?’’

Fair question but the truth is Walters might have needed the Seibold era more than people think he did in the way that Nathan Lyon did not need to be the first spinner chosen after Shane Warne.

The pressure of being compared to Warne crushed 10 or more spinners who played after Warne at Test level.

The pressure had dropped a bit for Nathan Lyon (right) because he was playing well after Shane Warne (left) retired. Picture: Morne de Klerk/Getty Images

By the time Lyon came along the measuring stick for him was not the bar set by Warne which was so high it was a danger to low-flying planes, but the efforts of the mainly modest talents who followed the wrist-spinning great.

It’s the same with the post Wayne Bennett era at the Broncos.

In the short term at least, the new Broncos coach will not be compared to the mighty Bennett but the 2020 stinkfest which has left the entire club numb.

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Only one man in 33 years has been able to handle the pressure of being Broncos coach. But, particularly on match day, Walters is better at handling pressure than people think he is.

Yes, he is a very emotional man, but when he coaches the Queensland State of Origin team he has a very calm presence in the Maroons coaching box.

Here’s one last tip for the Broncos and Walters. If they join up, do a review of Walters coaching now rather than wait for something to go wrong.

Work out what are his soft spots and address them now.

The Kevolution can work but the key is to be humble and hard-headed about the best way to do it.

Originally published as Robert Craddock: Why Kevin Walters is for the Broncos players, not the board