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Throughout the majority of its existence, the Dally M Coach of the Year award has been unfairly awarded to high achieving coaches.
Just look back through the honour roll. Craig Bellamy’s three gongs for minor premiership seasons in 2006, 2007 and 2011, Wayne Bennett’s for his top-two finish last year, and the 2009 title given to Kevin Moore to ensure we had something by which we could recall Kevin Moore.
Yes, traditionally the award is a slave to the game’s meat-and-potatoes criterion of wins and losses; its gallery of winners an unimaginative collection of those who have consummated lofty goals and finished on table high.
The whole exercise is not only predictable, it’s fundamentally wrong.
With plenty of trophies for winners getting around these days, the last thing the Coach of the Year award should be is meritocratic.
It shouldn’t exist to honour the topmost results. It should always be a sympathetic salute to the best story, no matter how covered in warts it may be.
Instead of those who have belted everyone all year, it should pat those on the back who’ve beaten the odds; those who have punched through adversity, polished a nard, or punched through adversity while polishing a nard.
If you agree, then look no further than Cbus Stadium this Saturday night for the prime candidates for this year’s award.
The Titans vs the Eels may appear like one of those commonplace battles for middle earth occurring in the thankless belly of mid-season, and it is.
But not only is it desperately thrilling stodge, it’s also a title fight between the two most outstanding, resilient, sanity-sacrificing coaches of 2016.
Brad Arthur and Neil Henry currently sit in remote ladder positions with ho-hum records. Both are not figuring in premiership calculations, mainly because neither will come close to winning the competition.
How could you go past them as the award’s obvious choices?
Sure, they won’t be going ocean-deep into post-season football this year. But I challenge you to find something more appealing than their arduous narratives.
Both men and their clubs are enjoying seasons of contrast. One team has a chance to make the eight, while the other has a chance to make bail.
At Parramatta – a rather large organisation in turmoil – Arthur is one of few who have avoided legislative censure. Despite this, he has amazingly moulded a winning unit from a playing group beset by the infirm, absconding, or those with more dick on tape than a Kevin Bacon box set.
Forget his team was dishonestly assembled for a moment and remember this: Chilean miners have refused the head coach role at the Eels because of its high likelihood of peril. Arthur knew this from the start, yet still agreed to the toxic chalice.
Such courage adds further weight to his claims for the award- the fact he described the place as a “shambles” yet still remains in the job by his own free will. It’s testament to the man’s love of a challenge, and/or downright stupidity.
As for Henry, with a history of governance failure and police intervention at the Titans, his tenure has been relatively similar.
The Gold Coast franchise was just like an impoverished crack house last year, only more broke.
But much like Arthur, the Titans coach ignored the safety briefings and forged on fearlessly through the powder storm, believing wholeheartedly there were better days on the horizon, or at the very least, a contract payout from a voluntary administrator.
The charming feature of Henry’s body of work this season has been his ability to consistently produce square meals using Home Brand ingredients.
Not only has he shaped a terrifically able unit of footballers from modest resources, he has taught the squad to grasp the benefits of early nights while still managing to retain the services of Greg Bird.
Henry and Arthur won’t win a cracker this year, but who cares?
Their success-to-siege ratio is supreme, and best of all, they’ve future-proofed these clubs against themselves. It deserves some kind of recognition award that will be forgotten by the end of the ceremony in which it is bestowed.
To whoever determines this honour, please shun merit and forget your Bellamys and Flanagans this year.
Bestow the insulting sympathy of this award on one of these two battlers. They’ve earned it.