2016 was a dreadfully underwhelming year for the NRL, with an unsatisfactory return of zero coaches sacked in the season proper.
However, in good news for the bloodthirsty, I am pleased to speculate there will be just as many, if not more, in season 2017.
Following an unacceptable year of stability, rugby league is primed for some good old-fashioned impetuousness, with nobody safe – from John Grant in the ivory tower right down to the low-paid schmo who’ll be the Steve Irwin to someone’s Todd Carney. As coaches are responsible for everything wrong in our game, they will deservedly lead the queue out the door.
So who’s in line for a premature payout?
With winning games being a bit of an unwritten rule of coaching, Nathan Brown at the Knights is statistically uber-ripe for the toe. But despite being set for more face-palming, he will probably be spared the discomfort of the axe in exchange for a full season that feels like a year-long prostate check.
Elsewhere, there’s a real sense of destiny at the Dragons and the Warriors. You could set a countdown clock to Paul McGregor’s toodle-oo, while you know it’s fate that Steve Kearney’s blue-chip roster will be a massive pain in the arse.
But enough about the destitute. What about Des Hasler and the Bulldogs?
With the family club adopting an attitude towards kinship much like Kim Jong-Un’s, 2017 shapes as a crossroads for the once untouchable mute. Hasler will either crush his doubting employers or, worse, lose his job and be immediately recruited by one of a multitude of awaiting desperates offering better money. No wonder they call coaching a mug’s game.
At Manly Trent Barrett has over a year to run on his contract, meaning he’s in deep crap, much like anyone else with a contract of any length in rugby league.
This is deeply unjust considering the stamp he has put on the Sea Eagles in a short space of time. It seems like only yesterday the club was a competitive premiership force, but he has managed to turn it around in a season. However, powerbrokers are miffed with Barrett’s latest drafted swarm of middle-tier talent that excites nobody except Supercoach enthusiasts. They figure if they needed a heap of expensive worthless stuff, they’d shop at a Blue Mountains crystals bazaar.
But despite the pressure being unbearable at Lottoland, at least the club and the lotteries have struck a tidy brand synergy – both offer a chance of winning, but it’s million-to-one odds.
Finally to Souths, where Michael Maguire’s career could be curtailed thanks to his incomprehensible tactic of listening to people aged 25 and under. By negligently embracing the concept of a thoughtful and considerate approach to gen Y moods, the coach has softened his barf-inducing dictatorial ways and handed the keys over to the people. As we’ve come to learn, this could deliver him a catastrophe like Donald Trump or a gridlocked senate, or it could lead to something as positive as the overturning of the new barbecue Shapes.
Considering the appalling state of democracy right now, it is obvious Maguire is in big trouble.
In one positive, at least new recruit Robbie Farah has no form on the board in this area.
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