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It’s fair to say it’s been a rough week at Ballymore. The fallout from the lacklustre performance against the Western Force last weekend could not have been more spectacular.
One week on and we have the coach sacked, the CEO announcing his plans to step down, and now five changes to the starting to side to face the Rebels in Melbourne.
But in a week where they might’ve been excused for circling the wagons, the Reds know they have to get on the front foot and move forward. And on that front, it was great to speak with new co-interim head coach, Nick Stiles, after he landed in Melbourne for their must-win clash on Saturday night.
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In a frank discussion, Stiles spoke of how the Reds’ plans haven’t really changed even though they have lost their “figurehead” in Richard Graham, that there certainly are risks with a dual-coaching model, and just how he and Matt O’Connor can start the Reds’ turnaround in 2016.
Brett McKay: You’ve had an interesting week, Nick…
Nick Stiles: Yeah, I have (laughs). In professional sport, you never know what’s around the corner, on or off the field.
McKay: You’d have had plans on how you were going to work as forwards coach in 2016, and as part of Richard Graham’s broader plans – how much of that changes now?
Stiles: The big change, definitely, is that Richard’s not there, so we’ve lost the figurehead, I suppose, the driver of the program.
In saying that, the organisation felt that between Matt and myself, we were more than well equipped to manage the program professionally, and to get the best out of the players. And at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing moving forward, that we improve.’
McKay: How will ‘co-interim head coaches’ work for the remainder of the season?
Stiles: It probably works out well. Obviously, with me being in charge of the forwards side of things, and ‘Matty’ the backs and attack element already, there’s no real crossover in that to start with.
We already had elements of the program divvied up anyway that we were working on [Stiles on the breakdown, O’Connor on defence, for e.g]. When the organisation went and got Matt, they felt that between the three of us, we had three very strong personalities with a wealth of experience, and so we already had different elements of the program that we were looking after.
McKay: From the outside looking in, the risks of a dual coaching set-up appear pretty obvious – do you guys acknowledge those same risks?
Stiles: Oh, listen, the outside view would definitely be saying there are risks, but the other layer that we’ve got in place now, on the back of the (July 2015) review is Daniel Herbert in there as general manager. He’s very hands-on in the process side of professional rugby, and he’s made it very clear how we’re moving forward.
And at the end of the day, as coaches you just want to win, and we’ll do whatever we have to do to be better and ultimately achieve success.
McKay: You and Matt are both ambitious, professional coaches with an eye on the top job for next year. How does that work, in that you’ll both want to get the job over the other guy, but you actually have to work with him to be successful this year. It’s going to be a very interesting dynamic.
Stiles: Oh yeah, it will be an interesting dynamic, but that’s where you’ve got to put your ego to the side.
I can only speak for myself, but I know growing up as a passionate Queensland kid wanting to play for the state, and then when I got into coaching, I wanted to be coaching here, too. To have lived those dreams out, you know, I am totally committed to doing everything I can to make sure we as a program, and we as the Queensland Reds dish up better football than we have.
McKay: With so much recent change at the top of the organisation of late, how is the Reds’ environment now?
Stiles: It’s very different; there’s been a lot of change in a short period of time.
You often see when a chairman moves on, or a CEO moves on that the coach will move on, too. The three positions are all obviously linked in very closely.
In Jim’s case, and in Rod’s [CEO Carmichael, and chairman McCall, respectively], they’d already the next five-year program, so they felt they’re leaving the organisation in a good place to move forward from where we are now. So, it’s not like they’ve come in and everyone’s been sacked and punted; there’s not that instability within the organisation.
McKay: You went through a similar situation yourself, back in your Reds playing days?
Stiles: Yeah, I did. Queensland had always had a stable coach in ‘Knuckles’ [John Connolly] for so long, and yeah, I was there as a player for his last few years, and then into Mark McBain’s period, Andrew Slack, and then I retired in Jeff Miller’s first few years.
So after so much stability [Connolly was there for 11 seasons from 1989], we had three coaches in three years.
As a coach, you draw back on your experiences as a player – good and bad – and you use that to mould what you do. And I suppose, having been through that, you understand that the need for stability and direction is important for us to move forward.
McKay: Thinking back to that time then, how important were the senior players within the group?
Stiles: The senior players – Michael Foley, Toutai Kefu, Dan Hebert, for example – were still remnants from that late ’90s playing group, but it’s a bit hard to compare players from back then to the modern player because the landscape in professional rugby has changed so much. You don’t have as many senior players in one place nowadays.
McKay: But the likes of Rob Simmons, Greg Holmes, and James Slipper are still around the group obviously – have they really stepped things up in the last few days?
Stiles: Slipper, even though he’s not on the field, he is our captain, and he has grown as a leader over the last couple of years incredibly. You’ve seen a lot of maturity in him this pre-season; since he came back from the Wallabies, pretty much. He’s been fantastic for the group this week, and will be even better when he can get back out there.
‘Simmo’ and ‘Holmesy’ have definitely been good [for the younger guys in the group].
We started a program back in pre-season about trying to develop our senior leaders, but also for every player in the group. If you’re a talented young footballer, you’re so focused on preparing yourself individually that you often have that concept of how to get the best out of other players around you.
So we’ve been running a program this year for the young guys – because we’ve so many of them this season – on what it is to be a leader, and even how you become a leader. And it is, or it can be, a tough thing to learn.
Simmo has been vice captain over the last couple of years, so he’s definitely had a taste of leadership and, you know, being a lineout caller, he’s heavily involved in the dynamics of the game plan and understanding everything. It’s more when you stick a title on a bloke that people think he’s suddenly got this new responsibility, whereas he’s sort of always had it.
McKay: It’s a really broad question, but how do you turn things around in a week?
Stiles: If you cast your mind back only two weeks ago when we played the Tahs, now we were very disappointed with the loss, but we felt that especially in that second half that we really showed some character, not to lay down and give in.
I reckon there was potential there to lose that game by plenty of points, but we dug in and fought back to 20-10 (in the 59th minute), and if we scored next, then who knows how the game might have panned out.
We showed some character there, but then just to see that performance last weekend, and how disappointing it was, to be honest, we just put a line through it come Tuesday and after all the decisions had been made, and we’ve now just got to move forward.
The players are very disappointed with how they performed – it’s certainly not all just on Richard. They were gutted, we’ve drawn a line in the sand, and now there’s no more excuses on or off the field to put in a much better performance this weekend.
McKay: And what of the Rebels, they’ll be smarting on their way back from South Africa, but they started pretty well against the Force?
Stiles: Yeah, they got the win against the Force, away from home, and that’s always a great way to start the year. And then even though it’s only a week-long tour, they would’ve been very confident I’m sure of victory [against the Bulls, in Pretoria].
You know when you play the Rebels you’re going to get a lot of physicality, you know, with ‘Seanny’ McMahon and Jordy Reid, Lopeti Timani; you’ve got guys who are very physical and go hard at the ball. And to be honest, for our playing group, it’s going to be a real test for us because it will give us a good indicator about how hard and committed we are to moving forward.
We will definitely go at them upfront; it’s how we’ve beaten them over the last couple of years. We went close to beating them with 14 men last year when James Horwill was sent off, so we definitely want to be up for that physical forward battle.
And then after that, we just want to build some continuity in our attack. We’ve got some pretty good backs out there that we haven’t seen a lot of: Samu Kerevi, Eto Nabuli, ‘Chrissy’ [Feauai] Sautia; some really powerful runners, and we’ve been letting ourselves down with our poor continuity.
If we can be better at the breakdown, hold onto the ball longer, you’re going to get the ball into those blokes’ hands, and when you do, they’re going to be dangerous.