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Ricky Stuart won’t be coaching in the NRL in two years, nor James Hird won’t be coaching Essendon in two years. They’re both back to where it all began, and they’re both stuffed.
Stuart and Hird may have taken different paths but they now find themselves at the same destination: coaching at the club where they established themselves as superstar players and failing miserably at it.
Sure, the official word is that they both have a future at their respective clubs, the teams where they are, quite rightly, heralded as champion players. But neither are going to be inside the dressing rooms when the 2016 season rolls around.
So, where do they go from here?
It must be tough for Stuart, a man who demonstrates an almost pathological inability to accept defeat, to be in a situation where he must confront the harsh reality of his own failings. I can’t imagine the struggle it must be for Ricky Stuart to look in the mirror and honestly believe that a bad coach is looking back.
Perhaps the Roosters premiership win in his first year as coach was a curse, rather than a blessing. It seems genuinely perverse that Stuart can boast a premiership to his name and Brian Smith cannot.
Filled with false hope and delusions about his own abilities as a coach, Ricky has wandered through the NRL over the past 12 years leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Welcomed back to the Raiders at the start of the year, this is surely his final destination. From this point, only Super League beckons for Stuart.
Stuart should be remembered for what he was: a great player and a fighter to the end. He is not a coach, not a good one anyway.
As for Hird at Essendon, his ability to coach is difficult to question, because he barely got a chance to prove anything. However, his capability to operate a club’s elite-level coaching program is past the point of questioning.
Being the head coach of an AFL club goes far beyond arranging the cones at training on Wednesday morning. Through all that has occurred at Essendon, Hird has demonstrated his inability to operate a coherent, responsible coaching program at the Dons. That much is clear.
He can’t do it, at least not yet, and certainly not at Essendon. The wounds are too fresh and the obstacles too many.
However, unlike Stuart, Hird may get a second chance at another AFL club. Serving time as an assistant coach somewhere else could only be beneficial for him. Gaining an understanding of the machinations of different club structures within football through the eyes of an assistant coach, rather than diving straight into the deep end, can only improve his overall coaching nous.
His time in the big chair at Essendon, and his lessons hard learnt, can be turned into valuable knowledge should he choose to take that path.
To reach a point where he can prosper as a coach, Hird faces the same task as Stuart: self-assessment, facing some hard truths, and taking ownership of what he has been responsible for and what he is capable of.
If your whole life you’ve been a fighter, making the decision to throw in the towel in the midst of a fight you can’t possibly win must be the toughest conflict of all.
For two men who achieved such greatness as players, and who demonstrated an inherent refusal to be beaten or give up, it may be impossible.
But for both of them, it’s the only way forward.
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