The NRL draw? Meh. Let’s talk coaching winners and losers

Oh, how we were ready to rant.

NRL draw announcement time is a usually a gold mine of angst, injustice, the Broncos riding a weekly channel 9 Friday night game into the top eight and the Roosters getting a free uber ride to the grand final.

But when the draw came out yesterday I’ll have to admit it was actually pretty good. There’s decent rest between games for teams, a fair mix of top eight and bottom eight matchups based on 2018’s finishing order and challenging matches across the board.

I looked as hard as I could and couldn’t unearth a Roosters conspiracy, either. It’s even tougher to argue about the amount of free to air tv time slots they got because they’re the premiers.

There’s a couple of things which stood out, the first being ‘Magic round’ in Brisbane which will happen in round nine from Friday, May 10 to Sunday, May 12.

Magic round has been scheduled far enough into the year that teams will have shaken off the ring rust, and far enough away from the first State of Origin game on June 5 to avoid a swathe of one-week injuries affecting team selections. (I’m curious to see how the crowd figures for magic round get reported, too)

The second thing to note was the lack of agro in the reactions when the draw landed. Everyone was ready to launch into the badness of it all but apart from some ashen-faced Brisbane fans digesting their first month (Storm, Cowboys, Dragons Roosters), fans seemed to come out happy enough with their lot.

I’m struggling to remember a more reasonable response to the NRL draw, to be honest. The NRL have done this so well we’ve seen some of the best fan ‘stretch complaints’ we’ve seen for a while.

There were your standard complaints around locations, times, and such, but try as they may, the NRL can’t fit each individual supporter’s schedule. They need to work on that.

So reasonable was the draw that the standout complaint came about the length of the document itself.

If this is the best complaint out there, then maybe we have to give due credit to the league for putting a good thing together, start putting in leave requests at work and home and move on to the next thing.

And what a thing it is – a quarter of the league have new head coaches and one team now has two.

Some of rugby league’s worst kept secrets were confirmed when announcements started to filter through that Ivan Cleary was indeed heading to Penrith, replaced at Wests Tigers by 2014 premiership coach Michael Maguire and that Souths and Brisbane were in effect swapping Anthony Seibold and Wayne Bennett.

As an added bonus we even saw Des Hasler signed back to Manly, placing the club in a unique position of having two head coaches on the books.

Des Hasler? Really? If I’m a Sea Eagles fan I guess I’d be happy? He hasn’t been out of the game too long, but I’d really hope his contract says any potential signings will be vetted and handled by the finance team.

(Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

Who wins out of all this? It’s hard to tell. Trent Barrett certainly doesn’t. The instant his lawyers can come to an agreement with Manly he’s out as an NRL coach and if they can’t get him paid out, he’s stuck there until July. It’s a uniquely awkward and pathetically managed situation for Manly.

Hasler’s return is bad news for rugby league journalists, now setting their alarms for the inevitable 7am press conferences.

The journo out there who decided to publish the massive story that David Furner was flipping on a contract with Leeds Rhinos to take the head role at South Sydney certainly doesn’t win.

Souths announced Bennett is joining in 2020, but it’s not going to be a surprise if Siebold and Bennett switch one year earlier.

Panthers caretaker Cameron Ciraldo doesn’t win, but I guess he’s had enough time to think about what he wants to do.

Wests Tigers can rightfully be peeved with Ivan Cleary, but they’ve brought in a guy with a better record (56 per cent winning and a premiership against 48 per cent winning).

Ivan Cleary may think he’s won because he gets to coach his son Nathan, but he’s also now back handcuffed to the whims of Phil Gould, who could literally do anything if he’s not satisfied with how things are going.

Of all the changes, Cleary is under the most pressure to deliver. He’ll front up to a hot squad and a well-backed club. There’s no rebuilding to be done, it’s all about winning and Cleary still has some convincing to do in that field.

(Photo: Matt King/Getty Images)

Anthony Seibold wins, sure. But do the Broncos? Seibold is highly regarded and showed with his work pushing the Bunnies back into title contention he’s got the nous. He’ll need to have the same instant impact up north or he’ll be on the hot seat right away.

Brisbane win – they get a quality coach in at a much cheaper clip than Craig Bellamy would have cost and they finally get to push Wayne Bennett out of the plane like they’ve been trying to do all year.

Rabbitohs General Manager of football Shane Richardson politely made it clear he wasn’t thrilled with how Siebold handled things, but like Penrith’s play for Cleary and Barrett’s situation at Manly, that’s life these days in the NRL.

Then there’s Wayne Bennett. Wayne always wins. I’m an unabashed fan of his coaching even though thousands aren’t. When Wayne wins, maybe Souths win too because good players tend to follow him around.

It’s hard to believe we’re still months away from round one and there’s all this excitement going on.

What’s next? Who knows. But I can’t wait to find out.