There is more intrigue, rumour, innuendo and “misinformation” surrounding the 16 head coaching jobs in the NRL than there is for palace watchers, Kremlinologists and Days Of Our Lives viewers combined. If this was a scripted drama, critics would pan it for its ludicrous and unbelievable plot lines.
A coach of a top four team and genuine title contender has already been sacked just four weeks out from the finals. It has been strongly speculated that Anthony Griffin was being punted from the Panthers so former coach Ivan Cleary, the father of the current star halfback Nathan, could be courted back by the man who sacked him just three seasons ago.
There is the most successful coach in premiership history, who is being shunned by the club he has coached for 25 seasons and taken to six premierships. For the second time. Wayne Bennett is seemingly so on the nose at the Broncos that only the coach of the Young Cherry Pickers reserve grade team hasn’t been approached to replace him. A barbecue snub over the weekend has brought it all to a head.
There is the third-year coach who has quit his club despite having no other club waiting for him with a job offer. Trent Barrett has reportedly not only quit Manly one-year into his latest three-year deal but did so months ago. Resignations without the security of another job are as common in the NRL as differential penalties and acting for the greater good of the game.
At the heart of the dramas at Penrith, Brisbane and Manly are the ageless struggle for power and the ever-increasing freneticism with looking forward rather than focussing on today.
Phil Gould could have no qualms with Griffin’s results at Penrith. The Panthers went 42-30 under his tutelage, went to the finals all three years and were poised to finish in the top four when the axe fell. Gould was openly upset with the style the Panthers were playing but was no doubt more concerned about his inability to control the coach. Rumours had been flickering all year that Griffin was out and his success accelerated his fall. Sensing that the future of Penrith was spiralling out of control, Gould launched a Machiavellian plot to lure Cleary back to Penrith, releasing a narrative weeks before the Griffin sacking that he would consider releasing halfback Nathan to reunite with coach Ivan at the Tigers, all the while engineering a play to get them together at Penrith.
Bennett is in the throes of one of the less subtle cold wars with CEO Paul White. Bennett is the Broncos. When he was forced out the first time, it was because then chief executive Bruno Cullen could not accept the power of the coach. A decade later, the same story is playing out. White has courted everyone from Craig Bellamy to Paul Green while refusing to give Bennett a discussion on his future. “I made it easy for them last time, I’m not doing it this time” Bennett said at a press conference where the main topic was the barbeque of the CEO that the playing group snubbed in order to hang out with the coach at his home.
Barrett came to power at Manly on the back of one of rugby league’s true powerbrokers, Bob Fulton. Fulton is now out and the powers-that-be at Manly are not giving a young coach the support or the resources he needs, at least in his view. Rather than let another season of bad results tarnish his results, Barrett will walk into the abyss, shunning a club that was not that long ago the most powerful in the league.
At the core has been the rise in power of the coach and the move into a supporting role of the chief executive. CEOs rarely want to answer to anyone. Coaches are used to getting what they want when they want. With few of the Peter Moore/Ken Arthurson dictators left in the game, coaches have assumed a near-untouchable role, particularly when successful.
This has served, incredibly, to make mentors of teams at the top of the table more susceptible than those at the bottom. This is the rugby league world we are now living in, where none of the coaches of bottom four teams are in danger while there could be as many as four top eight teams switch mentors. Success is seemingly the fastest way to the sack in NRL-land.
While the focus has been on Penrith, Brisbane and Manly, other clubs have been caught in the crossfire.
The Tigers are trying grimly to hang onto Ivan Cleary but the pull of family and the significant resource advantage at Penrith means he will return to the Panthers sooner rather than later. Brisbane are eyeing off South Sydney coach Anthony Seibold after one season of success. Gold Coast have been linked to Wayne Bennett but his more likely destination is St George Illawarra, who he took to a premiership in 2010.
Cleary and Bennett are very much at the vanguard of the back-to-the-future trend that is seemingly now embedded in the NRL. Manly are believed to be considering former coaches Geoff Toovey and Des Hasler. They, along with the Tigers, have been linked to Neil Henry, who failed to win a premiership at any of his three previous clubs. Griffin will be a contender for both jobs as well. Despite the long and torrid history of recycled coaches failing and this crazed prioritisation of the future at all costs, no new faces are being touted for a head coaching gig.
Perhaps it is for the best. There is no more ruthless job in Australian sport than that of an NRL coach, where being successful can be damaging and where building a club from the inside out is seen by some as a powerplay that needs to be stopped.
