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NRL's coaching merry-go-round

Tim Sheens. (Getty Images)
Roar Guru
8th August, 2013
5

In now what appears to be a sack-happy culture within the NRL’s ranks, who would honesty want to coach at the professional level? You’re damned if you do and most certainly damned if you don’t.

The recent sacking of NRL coaches is embarrassing and arrogant.

A sacking is not necessarily due to the fact that a coach is not able to do his job but because his team needs a much needed boost.

And as is normal, when a coach cops the boot, a team will undergo certain rejuvenation for the first couple of games. But of course the initial rejuvenation brought about by the new coach will fade away, eventually.

Clubs must get the right coach. Once they think have the right man, maintaining him in the post over the medium to long term has a whole range of benefits that perhaps aren’t seen by supporters and others if they don’t get immediate results.

In any form of working life – business, government or sport – you need time to build your team and deliver that philosophy on what you’re looking to achieve.

And so, the question remains. Should clubs stick by coaches regardless of their bad phases or at times when the club isn’t doing so well? When does the time come when constant failure is unacceptable?

The downsides of changing are enormous and costly as the Wests Tigers are experiencing first hand. Former coach, Tim Sheens gets paid $37,500 for doing nothing.

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This is ten months after his sacking the club. That’s $8,650 a week to do whatever takes his fancy.

What clubs need to do is look at the core business and make sure the people running them are having very close liaison with the key personnel.

Meet on a quarterly basis to ask what are our goals? OK, we haven’t achieved our last quarter, let’s set our expectations for the next quarter, for where we want to be.

Making sure the expectations of the external investors are the same as the internal investors hold.

A great example albeit in another code is Manchester United.

The Red Devils nearly sacked Sir Alex Ferguson in his first couple of seasons at the club.

But they didn’t and he later transformed the club to what it is now: one of the biggest clubs, in any code, in the world.

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