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Rugby league in Australia has gone a little stale and needs some new ideas from some new coaches.
Yeah, yeah, call it a hot take. Sure, bemoan it as another negative article about the NRL. Or, you could open your eyes and admit that once you take away some breathtaking feats of pure athleticism and individual play, the 2017 NRL season has been a little boring.
In fact, if we’re being honest, it has been for a number of seasons now.
That doesn’t mean there haven’t been numerous great games and some sensational action and drama, but from a purely tactical point of view, it’s been quite a while since we’ve seen anything truly revolutionary or game-changing.
That’s not exactly surprising when you look at the head coaches of the NRL teams in 2017 and how long they’ve been around.
Wayne Bennett was ordering players around and playing mind games with the media when I was still in nappies, while Craig Bellamy, Des Hasler and Ricky Stuart have all been coaching in the NRL for well over a decade.
Ivan Cleary has now coached three clubs in 11 years, and Shane Flanagan has been at the helm of the Sharks since 2010.
Stephen Kearney and Anthony Griffin have been in and around the traps for a while, with both getting their first head coaching gigs in 2011.
Nathan Brown returned to the NRL last year after honing his coaching skills in the UK – with some great success in the Super League – however, he actually made his NRL coaching debut way back in 2003.
Then there are the relative newcomers. Trent Robinson and Michael Maguire have been with their clubs for five and six years respectively, while Paul Green, Paul McGregor and Brad Arthur all debuted in 2014.
Trent Barrett is the new kid on the block, taking the reins at Manly last season, though like many coaches, he had served his apprenticeship as an assistant for quite a lengthy period of time, starting with Penrith late in 2012.
(AAP Image/Paul Miller)
As you can see, there isn’t exactly a large volume of new blood in the coaching ranks, which could be a reason why there isn’t a great deal of fresh thinking in the NRL.
I should stress that you don’t need to be a new face to have new ideas. The best coaches in any sport around the world are the ones that adapt, evolve and innovate, rather than stubbornly holding on to one set of tactics or beliefs.
However, nothing forces you to think differently quicker than someone new doing it, and I think coaching across the board in the NRL could benefit from some fresh talent shaking things up.
Kevin Sheedy in the AFL, Rod Macqueen in rugby, and John Buchanan in cricket are just a few examples of coaches who didn’t settle for the status quo, and who had had great success by doing so.
Rugby league is overdue for someone to break the paradigm.
There is currently a coaching vacancy in the NRL, with the Gold Coast Titans firing Neil Henry a few weeks ago – himself a veteran of ten years of head coaching jobs.
Kevin Walters, Geoff Toovey, Laurie Daley and Jason Taylor have been some of the names mentioned as a possible replacement, yet they probably represent “more of the same”, so I’m sincerely hoping the Titans think outside the box, and consider the Walker brothers.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
Ex-NRL players Ben and Shane Walker are the co-coaches of the Ipswich Jets in the Queensland Cup, and since taking control of the team in 2011, they’ve implemented a funky style of play that they call “contract football”. The entertaining brand of footy essentially means that if a teammate is in a better position than you, you have a responsibility – or ‘contract’ – to pass it, irrespective of anything else going on in the game.
However, the innovative thinking extends way past that simple mantra, with the Jets known for using such tactics as short kickoffs, attacking players passing from sideline to sideline in the same play, and no wrestling in defence.
The brothers preach maintaining possession for as long as possible – even including running sideways and backwards – in order to stretch the defence to its’ limits, waiting for an overlap or hole in the defensive line.
It’s unstructured, it’s unusual and it’s effective, with the Jets having been to the finals in five out of six seasons under the brothers, and winning the 2015 Intrust Super Cup and NRL State Championship. It’s also appealing, with crowds loving the freewheeling style of play.
Though no one can guarantee that the Walker brothers’ brand of football would succeed at the next level, their chances of getting the role at the Titans is gaining momentum, with a belief that the club needs to do something different to reinvigorate rugby league on the Gold Coast.
Yet I’d go a step further and suggest the whole NRL needs a little reinvigorating.
The Walker Brothers and other fresh-thinking coaches could be just the tonic to give the NRL some much-needed innovation – not to mention crowd-friendly tactics – to ensure the game is being progressive.