NRL 2020: Cowboy hats and cold beers the start of the road back for deposed Broncos coach Anthony Seibold
Anthony Seibold is planning to go from mental exhaustion to physical exhaustion for his life after the Broncos, revealing his plan to escape to the outback and “earn his beers”.
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When the Broncos kick off against the Sydney Roosters on Friday, Anthony Seibold will have just put down his cowboy hat and picked up a beer after a hard day’s toil on a central Queensland farm.
He worked hard as a coach and will bend his back as a farm hand.
“A mate of mine owns a property up in central Queensland, past Clermont, so I am going up there with another friend from boarding school,’’ Seibold said.
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“I will pretend to be a farmer for a week and get away from the city. I said to him, ‘work me hard’.
“I want to earn my beers, so I will see what he comes up with ... I will go away and put my cowboy hat on and go back to being someone from central Queensland.’’
Seibold is heading bush to relax but also to sweat out the residual tension of rugby league’s most unforgiving coaching role.
You can almost imagine the stress cascading off his shoulders as he pounds in a post or rounds up a rogue cow.
But you could also imagine him waking suddenly at 2.30am, sitting bolt upright, and thinking “where the hell am I?’’
You don’t get over coaching the Broncos overnight, never mind the stresses of a winter from hell which has left the club in disarray.
Only four men have had the job in the club’s 33-year history and just one of those – Wayne Bennett – was able to handle the searing pressure because he thrived on the drama of it all.
In some ways Bennett was all ears because he loved the gossip.
In others, he was no ears at all because he refused to monitor the social media trolls who made Seibold’s life a misery.
The parameters of the interviews for the men most likely to replace Seibold, Kevin Walters and Paul Green, have changed since the day Seibold was interviewed and board members said to each other “you feel like giving him the job already’’ as he left the room.
This time, as well as wanting to see a road map to the next premiership, they want to know if each man is emotionally strong enough to handle the furnace when the SS Broncos hits a submerged log and almost sinks.
Instead of being impressed by connections with television identity Todd Sampson, the board will want to know how the new man will connect to the least worldly members of their playing staff.
Dumbing it down has suddenly become more important than talking it up.
If, as they say, a man’s resignation speech is his first interview for his next job, Seibold is already moving forward.
Not only did he face a main press conference but he willingly did another nine one-on-one media chats later with a calm dignity that confirmed he is bruised but not broken, and a man who sees the merit in the saying what does not kill you makes you stronger.
You just sense he will rise again, but it will take time and the humility needed to step back into an assistant coaching role before he moves forward.
“I think I have improved as coach, I will be better for this experience,’’ Seibold said.
He said he has learnt much but refused to specify what. If you could peer into his soul the answer might be that young teams must have simple game plans and older players around them to truly grow and prosper.
Seibold cried when he told his players he was leaving but his only glassy-eyed moment at the main press conference came when he said he hardest moment of the entire ordeal was getting on a flight from Sydney (to leave his daughter).
As he left the Broncos complex, his former side was training and the sound of the beat box which one of his innovations was pumping out a tune.
The NRL had lost its fifth coach for the season but the beat goes on.
Originally published as NRL 2020: Cowboy hats and cold beers the start of the road back for deposed Broncos coach Anthony Seibold