Ricky Stuart’s stupidity cost him dearly
Roar Guru
By Alan Nicolea, 9 Dec 2008 Alan Nicolea is a Roar Guru
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In the aftermath of Australia’s Rugby League World Cup Final loss to New Zealand, there was always going to be one key casualty who would pay the ultimate price for an unexpected failure.
At the end of 2005, Wayne Bennett was the scapegoat for the Kangaroos Tri-Nations Final loss to the Kiwis, which ultimately cost him his position as head coach.
In 2006, Bennett was replaced by current Sharks coach Ricky Stuart, who was handed the job of regaining the Kangaroos world no.1 crown after it had been taken by New Zealand, courtesy of a 24 nil whitewash in the Tri-nations final the year before.
Stuart did exactly that.
He restored the Kangaroos league dominance when he helped wrestle world supremacy away from the Kiwis by winning the 2006 Tri-Nations tournament here in Australia.
Since that result, Stuart enjoyed a golden period coaching the Kangaroos, which culminated in a record breaking 58 nil win over New Zealand late last year – the biggest winning margin against their Trans Tasman rivals.
In the lead up to this year’s World Cup, Stuart’s Kangaroos were so dominant most fans thought the tournament would be one of the biggest one sided contests ever to be called a World Cup.
Many critics of the game even had problems with the ten team tournament being called a World Cup judging from the recent results heavily favouring an Australian victory.
Indeed, Stuart kept those thoughts well and truly alive at the beginning of this year’s World Cup, with his no mercy attitude, installing the Kangaroos with a killer instinct that plunged heavyweight rivals, New Zealand and England, to crushing defeats in the group stages.
However, Stuart only needed to lose his second game at Suncorp Stadium in front of a record Test crowd, to see the position of Australian head coach disappear before him.
The Kangaroos were humbled 34-20 by the Kiwis, ending a sequence consisting of six consecutive World Cup wins for Australia.
Although the limelight was firmly placed on fullback Billy Slater for his blunder close to the Kangaroos tryline, the pressure was always going to be on Stuart for the loss – pressure that really got the best of him.
Rather than come to terms with New Zealand’s deserved world cup victory, Stuart was reported to be so disturbed by the defeat, that he verbally attacked ARL CEO Geoff Carr, claiming that tournament organizers and match officials conspired against the Kangaroos in the final.
He also verbally abused English World Cup final referee Ashley Klein and director of Referee’s Stuart Cummings, calling them cheats and citing them as the reasons why the Kangaroos lost.
One now believes that if Stuart just swallowed his thoughts, he would still be Kangaroos head coach.
But in the aftermath of his comments, Stuart has been forced to quit the most honourable coaching position in Australian rugby league, really out of his own doing.
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MarkH said | December 9th 2008 @ 7:30am | Report comment
The problem with guys like Stuart, is he is a yobbo. The NRL / ARL are run by Yobbos. They dont treat it like a business, its a lads club for EX league players. Colin Love is a fool. He should have steped up staraight away and gave Stuart his marching orders. Professional coaches dont let things get to them RE – Robbie Deans. If anyone had a gripe about decisions by refs etc, it was him. Did he gob off? No, took it in his stride. Thats a coach of a national team.
Alan Nicolea said | December 9th 2008 @ 7:59am | Report comment
Mark H
I know where you are coming from. Stuart’s commitment and passion to the Kangaroos cause though can not be questioned. For me, his emotion for Australia got the best of him and it has cost him now. He has a history of going over board with referees. Hopefully this is the final nail in the coffin and Stuart is able to finally learn from his mistakes – at the expense of the Australian coaching job.
MarkH said | December 9th 2008 @ 10:10am | Report comment
Alan, they need a real CEO that has no emotional attachement. If the NRL / ARL are to survive. Business heads do it, not pride.
Brett McKay said | December 9th 2008 @ 10:39am | Report comment
Mal Meninga has already thrown his hat in the ring, so presumably he’s spoken with Neil Henry first. He’s going to need a game plan after all….
Thinly-veiled shot at a candidate’s ability to “coach” aside, I do admit the idea of the national coach not being aligned to a club is a good idea. As good a coach as Bellemy is, NSW should have done the same thing..
Alan Nicolea said | December 9th 2008 @ 11:46am | Report comment
Brett Mckay
In terms of your thought on Bellamy and the NSW coaching position, Ricky stuart coached the Roosters and the Blues in 2005 and won the Origin series – the last victory for NSW before QLD’s new dominance.
Who do you think should coach the Blues that is not already coaching an NRL club?
Brett McKay said | December 9th 2008 @ 12:17pm | Report comment
Alan, I think Bellamy’s sort of onto this theory as well – it came out over the weekend (I think) that he’s after an “assistant coach” who can essentially just focus on the SOO series for the 7 or 8 weeks full-time. Daley and A.Johns were his assistants last year, and could well be who he has in mind, but their media commitments might rule otherwise. Someone like Craig Young might be in line for a more prominent role too.
The idea of a fulltime assistant to essentially manage the campaign, would allow Bellamy to come in as required, but also for him to be not too far removed from his Melbourne gig. I’ll be interesting to see how it works out, but overall, I like Qld’s idea of having Henry work on game plans and tactics etc in the background while Meninga undertakes all the “upfront” stuff. Anyone who saw Canberra play under Meninga and then massive difference of how they played under Henry will concur with my earlier comment.
To answer your question though Alan, unfortunately I can’t think of a NSW equivalent to Meninga. If Brad Fittler hadn’t gone straight into coaching the Roosters, he may well have been a candidate, the same could have been said of either Johns boy had they not gone straight to Ch.9. I think Laurie Daley will coach NSW one day, but again, his media work (and I believe he’s about to go back to Fox?) might prevent his full attention. Steve Roach did himself no favours last year, Royce Simmons is attached to Tim Sheens, Peter Sterling will die with a Ch.9 mic in his hand, and someone like Steve Mortimer has probably been out of the game too long.
So I guess all I can say is touche….