NRL coaches live in constant fear of getting sacked — so why would anyone take the job?
US FOOTBALL guru Bum Phillips once said, “There’s two types of coaches; them that’s fired ... and them that’s gonna be.” Never more true than in the NRL.
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SO YOU ask Chris Anderson about the idea that ended him ... One marker.
“Ah ... interesting,’’ the dual premiership coach cackles. “You could say it was interesting”.
Could say it was more than that, too.
For when Anderson asked his 2007 Roosters to defend with only one marker, not two, it effectively bookmarked an evolutionary churn which, within three years, saw 13 NRL coaches removed from their post.
A year before Anderson’s infamous ploy, six coaches were axed. A year after, as many gone again. His own demise completing a baker’s dozen who owned no less than six premiership rings.
“Which is why,’’ he says, “nobody takes risks anymore”.
Yet still, they get punted anyway. Regularly.
Indeed, in the decade since Anderson rolled the dice and came up snake eyes, the NRL has seen 44 clipboard carries axed, walk, even retire through ill health.
Among them, genuine heavyweights like Anderson, Brian Smith, Steve Folkes, Tim Sheens. And on Thursday night at ANZ Stadium, Canterbury coach Des Hasler looms as victim 45.
Or given the situation over at Wests Tigers, where interim Andrew Webster could be gone before Sunday, victim 46.
So we wait.
Watching Hasler as, up behind coaching box glass, he spits, points, plots and generally resembles that Death Row inmate writing his last letter to the Governor of Arkansas, hopeful of prolonging the inevitable.
For as Bum Phillips, the beautifully named Texas football guru, once noted: “There’s two types of coaches in this world; them that’s fired ... and them that’s gonna be.”
Which is true, sure. Yet never in rugby league has the distance between said options seemed so short. Nor the reasons for shifting from one to the other so convoluted.
Call it an evolution that began somewhere around 2006, when the roll call of axed coaches included Brian Smith, Johnny Lang, Stuart Raper, Shaun McRae, Jason Taylor and Anderson’s predecessor, Ricky Stuart.
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A shift that now threatens Hasler, too.
For rather than his coaching record being questioned, this Canterbury boss is suddenly one wrong move from a Centrelink queue because of issues like recruitment, retention, even a structure which, regardless of wether it works, appears to have lost his roster.
“Canterbury players, they seem filled with doubt,’’ says one retired coach. “And doubt in your system, it’s fatal.”
Adds another: “The Bulldogs seem unsure if what they’re being told even works.”
And yet it is more than that, too. For once, coaches were judged purely on results.
Today though, they must oversee recruitment, retention, sponsorships, Third Party Agreements, salary caps, even a financial spend which can top $20 million annually.
But as one NRL suit puts it: “Just because coaches now have a say on every aspect of football, it doesn’t mean they get it right.”
Again, take Hasler.
Despite being gifted what one rival calls “every bell and whistle”, the Mad Scientist is now being questioned over letting Mick Ennis go, paying Moses Mbye overs and whatever it was that cruelled Michael Lichaa’s claim as Next Big Thing.
Which doesn’t mean he can’t coach.
Ditto Anderson, who won the ‘95 premiership with Canterbury, doubled down at Melbourne, earned a World Cup with Australia, Challenge Cup at Halifax and will forever be the last coach who really took a punt against complete, kick long, wrestle.
“I tried something,” Anderson says of his infamous one marker campaign. “Nothing was working so I tried something different.
“But you can’t take risks anymore.
“Coaches now are under such pressure to win they say: OK, this is the structure that gets us there. That’s it. Rather than teaching the art of football, players learn only their job within the structure.”
Still, you never lose a job winning. Just ask Craig Bellamy, whose 15 winters in Melbourne have been built on honesty, accountability, simplicity.
Ditto, Wayne Bennett, who hasn’t only survived twice that time, but earned seven premierships. And, sure, the old bloke is under the pump himself. At 67, accused of not simply losing his glasses or car keys, but an entire dressing room.
“But look at the way Brisbane still play,’’ says one rival. “Straight and hard at the advantage line. In defence, off their line ripping in.
“And guess what? It works.”
Still, successful coaches need more again.
Indeed, publicly, Bennett has always professed that the better his players, the better he coaches. And privately, that winning “requires finances”.
“Which doesn’t bode well for whoever takes on Wests Tigers,’’ says one former premiership coach. “Or Nathan Brown at Newcastle.
“When you’re on the bottom tier financially, coaching wins will always be tough.”
Indeed, the greatest asset any coach can have is his front office.
Take the Knights, who axed Rick Stone in 2015 for a season yielding eight wins. Then replaced him with Brown, who has since won two of 28.
Parramatta, too, were glad to see Michael Hagan walk in 2008, convinced his 51 per cent success rate was too low.
So they hired Daniel Anderson, who won at 48 per cent. Then punted him for Stephen Kearney, who won at 23 per cent.
So he was gone for Ricky Stuart — and a winning strike rate of 21 per cent.
“So who can blame Sticky for bolting to Canberra?’’ says one old Eels employee. “Raiders administration is now up there with the likes of Brisbane, Melbourne, the Roosters and North Queensland.”
Indeed, in 35 years every Raiders coach has received at least five seasons to prove himself.
“So I’d like to think Rick feels safe,’’ CEO Don Furner says. “And coaches accordingly.
“We’re not a club who churns through guys ... if anything we’ve developed many out the coaches out there now.”
All of whom, it should be noted, will come under the pump eventually.
And so we wait. For Hasler and Webster. Brown and Cleary. Even Bennett.
For as ‘ol Bum Phillips used to say: “I always thought I could coach. I just thought people were poor judges of good coaches”.
THE NRL’S SACKED COACHES
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Originally published as NRL coaches live in constant fear of getting sacked — so why would anyone take the job?
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