By Dan Walsh
‘Chase five rabbits, catch none’ is the Confucius proverb Anthony Seibold tweaks when the question turns to a coach’s game-day address.
Seibold’s rugby league rabbit chase has taken him from the south of Wales, to Harvard University, then Redfern to Red Hill, and now a sudden-death semi-final opposite Trent Robinson’s Roosters.
Robinson’s own coaching road stretches back to a 28-year-old with busted knees and a motorbike in the south of France, and has taken his side just as far from the typical day in the life of an NRL player.
“Well, there was the sweat lodge this pre-season, talking about different energies and mindsets,” off-season recruit Dom Young grins.
“That’s something I never would’ve considered myself.”
Hooker Connor Watson - finally injury-free and with a career-best campaign, featuring NSW Origin debut, to show for it - offers more.
Summer sweat: The Roosters during pre-season training.Credit: James Brickwood/SMH
“We’ve done it a few times now, and I definitely wouldn’t have done something like it if I wasn’t at the Roosters or playing under Robbo,” he says.
“I couldn’t tell you how hot it gets, but it’s brutal and you’re in this tent for almost two hours.
“The guy running it opens the floor up for people to speak about different things, a couple of songs go around. It can be pretty funny to be honest. It’s definitely different.
“We’re there in shorts, and you’re sitting on the grass. And I’ve done one of these sweat lodges before, looked down and there’s a huntsman sitting there next to me on the ground. I didn’t know if I was hallucinating or what, but no, a big old spider right there next to me. Like I said, different.”
Trent Robinson is happy to think outside the NRL square.Credit: NRL Imagery
An NRL coach hunting for a psychological or physical edge hardly makes him Columbus.
Michael Maguire’s baseball bat in the dressing room, Des Hasler’s calf’s blood and Jack Gibson’s return from the US with bounties of video and statistical analysis half a century ago make for some of rugby league’s most regularly spun yarns.
For Seibold especially, boiling a career-long treasure-hunt for philosophies, theories and ‘one-percenters’ down to bite-sized morsels for his players has been a winding, wending evolution.
His famed gravel in a blender voice stems from a knock to the throat almost 25 years ago playing for London Broncos.
Anthony Seibold during his playing days with Canberra in 1998.Credit: NRL Imagery
The irony is it has been exacerbated by his passion for teaching and university lecturing, and then coaching - vocations that have you talking all day, every day.
Over the years he has swapped ideas with types from all walks of life - from AFL coaches Ken Hinkley and Luke Beveridge to advertising guru Todd Sampson, fashion show director Kannon Rajah and Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn.
It’s easy to see how the two rabbits Confucius initially spoke of chasing more than doubles, and information overload in his game plans was a stinging criticism of Seibold’s ill-fated stint at Brisbane.
“He does more video and preparation than any coach I’ve had, his attention to detail is what stands out,” veteran five-eighth Luke Brooks says.
Seibold in the back row of the Waratahs’ coaches box, with Jason Gilmore (left) and Darren Coleman (right) in the front row earlier this year.Credit: Stan Sport
As game day draws closer though, “simple messages and narrowing the focus is important for footy players,” Seibold says.
“We go after two or three things individually and/or collectively with the players. There is an old saying ‘chase five rabbits, get none’. We don’t overload the players with too much. We want our players to ‘think less and do more’ on the field.”
When Comyn was invited into Seibold’s coaching box in round two for what proved a resounding win over the Roosters, the boss of Australia’s largest company marvelled at how compact the Manly halftime address was.
“Science of retrieval” is the basis - picked up during his time on Eddie Jones’ English rugby union coaching staff - and notion that there’s no use introducing new ideas, or too many of them, at such a pressure point in proceedings.
Robinson too has travelled similar terrain since he arrived in Toulouse to play in the French domestic competition, his teammates soon dubbing him ‘The Intellectual’.
Widely read and just as widely travelled, Robinson rode his motorbike from southern France to Athens, met his wife and grew fluent in both French and rugby league once his playing days ended and coaching began.
Roosters players often describe him as the smartest man they’ve ever met.
Rival coaches and fans have bristled for years at how that comes across, particularly when Robinson is asked for an opinion on wider issues in the game.
“Check out the big brain on Robbo” was how colleague Andrew Webster aptly summed up the sentiment six years ago.
The Roosters team room - designed as a replica of an NRL field - in the club’s Allianz Stadium offices.Credit: Roosters Digital
Inside the Roosters’ $12 million offices at Allianz Stadium though, Robinson’s rugby league brain takes charge on a replica NRL field painted onto the floor of the team’s meeting room.
Numbered blocks are used to map out game plans and tactics like a game of human chess.
“I think sometimes he can confuse a few blokes,” Nat Butcher laughs.
“I don’t know if everyone is always understanding the direction he’s heading in just because there is so much knowledge behind what he’s saying.
“But you can see him pull it back sometimes, maybe for the front-rowers, and he’ll always get his point across.”
As reigning champion in the club’s NFL Fantasy Football league, he’s got a bit of their cash and a treasured trophy too.
Robinson is loath to give his players and staff an inch in the competition.
But it’s long been a different story at the start of each pre-season, when Roosters players are gathered to map out a set of standards to live, train and play by for the upcoming campaign.
Robinson guides the conversation, but it’s the players who dominate it.
Sea Eagles skipper Daly Cherry-Evans says a similar approach from Seibold has been critical in their development and Manly’s rise to the finals for the first time since 2021.
After Seibold’s contract negotiations were put on hold in May to let the side’s results speak for themselves, talks will pick up again whenever Manly’s off-season kicks off, with CEO Tony Mestrov pushing for an extra year or two on the deal.
“Part of his [coaching] style is working with the senior players around how we want to play,” Cherry-Evans says.
“And that’s been a big area for me to improve at - being able to delegate to others and bring others into the leadership side of things.
“I’m very much a doer, so part of my own learning as a captain is involving Jake and Tom [Trbojevic] in the leadership side of things and communicating better. Seibs has definitely helped and encouraged that.”
NRL is Live and Free on Channel 9 & 9Now
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.