NRL 2022: Rookie coaches must walk a hard road, Paul Kent
In a year in which some rookie coaches have thrived and others have been axed, Cameron Ciraldo and Andrew Webster should be taking notes if they want to succeed, writes Paul Kent.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Back to the gainfully employed and the only thing more interesting in the coaching ranks than who delivers the pre-game speech at Canberra and perhaps kicks a chair to keep in character is the plight of the battling rookie coaches.
Rookie coach Andrew Webster is just a few months away from taking the helm at the Warriors who are going so poorly their opposition coaches last week, hailing from South Sydney, were seen laughing in the coach’s box as the tries rolled in.
Apparently it was not in the face of their rivals, but it was in the first half.
Clearly it has been a mixed year for the coaching ranks.
Stream every game of every round of the 2022 NRL Telstra Premiership Season Live & Ad-Break Free During Play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
On the positive side, Todd Payten is the early favourite for Coach of the Year.
This time last year Payten’s Cowboys, currently second on 32 points, were 14th on the ladder ahead of Brisbane and Canterbury and a win behind the Wests Tigers.
He was in a private war with Jason Taumalolo, his best player at $1 million a year, which usually doesn’t augur well for rookie coaches tailing out the competition, and with murmurs persisting some wondered whether he might see out the season.
Then Payten did something remarkable.
He backed himself, being both brave and intelligent over the summer.
Rather than taking the softly-softly approach to please his players and perhaps buy himself time he gave them tough love, turning the intensity up, teaching them, in the old phrase, to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
There have been other improvers.
Keen readers will note that Kevin Walters’ Broncos were below the Cowboys a year ago and yet he has rejuvenated the club to the point where only a catastrophic collapse could cost them a finals appearance.
A fortnight ago the Broncos (26 points) were even eyeing off a top four finish, although that now seems distant.
Craig Fitzgibbon has improved the Sharks from 10th to third (30 points) and beyond just their position there is a change in the Sharks that is easy to see.
You can see the coaching that has gone into them, the Sharks a different team altogether defensively.
The standout, of course, is Ivan Cleary’s Penrith team (38 points) which has lost just two games all season, both to Parramatta, and are rolling forward with such authority that only Covid can stop them.
The only case against Cleary as this year’s Coach of the Year is that much of the performance this season was put in place last season and the season before, all by Cleary’s doing, of course, but is that enough to swing the vote for this year?
By way of reference the Panthers were second this time last year.
Where it finds a twist is Payten and Walters are both in their second seasons as head coaches. Fitzgibbon his first.
They bring a fresh conversation to coaching in the NRL.
Webster takes over the Warriors next season after an apprenticeship at Penrith under Cleary.
Cameron Ciraldo is also expected to move on from Penrith and sign with Canterbury.
Ciraldo met with Bulldogs boss Phil Gould more than a month ago and once the conversation ended with nothing but positives it was expected he would soon have a contract to sign.
Yet he waits.
That the two Penrith assistants under Cleary are being geared to take over as head coaches at other clubs makes sense given the Panthers’ performances but, as many know, success elsewhere as an assistant does not guarantee success in the big chair.
Just a week ago Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien came under heavy pressure after saying he was an assistant in four premierships and knew what success looks like.
O’Brien knew what he meant to say, which is he was witness to the standards at those clubs and was seeing similar standards being applied at Newcastle.
Yet this copycat belief of taking an assistant out of a successful program and believing it will be reproduced is a flawed logic in some sense.
We can all sit and watch a movie and give our assessment at the end, for instance, on whether it was a good movie or bad movie.
Most of us have The Godfather considerably ahead of Speed 2, by way of example.
Yet it is one thing to recognise it, and what it is we like about it, but it is something altogether different to create it.
That is the trick of moving from assistant to head coach; suddenly they are the director.
Trent Barrett came out of the same system Webster and Ciraldo were developed in and yet the Bulldogs have improved in almost every statistic since Mick Potter has moved in and simplified their game.
Walters took over from Anthony Seibold who had a gold star reputation as a Melbourne assistant before performing brilliantly in his first and only season as Souths coach.
It went south from there.
In each, their failures seem to stem from an inability to coach their way out of trouble once they begin travelling the hard road.
And nobody knows they don’t know, until they know they don’t know.
Originally published as NRL 2022: Rookie coaches must walk a hard road, Paul Kent
Buzz’s top-50 NRL players for 2024: Four millionaires miss the cut
Phil Rothfield’s Top 50 NRL players for 2024 is littered with the game’s highest paid players, but four million-dollar men from the Rich 100 failed to make the cut. See the full Top 50 and have your say.
What Seibold’s revival says about ‘cursed’ Broncos coaching role
“It’s you not us’’ was the cry when Anthony Seibold was effectively shown the door in Brisbane. Maybe, ROBERT CRADDOCK writes, it was the Broncos all along.