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Opinion
Origin coaching is a different beast to the grind of the NRL but despite its comparative brevity, it still has a shelf life.
Brad Fittler is preparing the Blues for a sixth year in a row and even if he can defy the odds to win this series by beating Queensland in the next two matches, he looks like a coach who has had enough.
In previous years he had a glint in his eye and revelled in the role with his carefree nature protecting him from the slings and arrows that come with job but this year he’s looked more stern and like someone who’s being weighed down by the constant external scrutiny.
He is the only Blues coach to last six straight years – Phil Gould was at the helm for eight series over two stints. Wednesday’s clash in Brisbane will be Fittler’s 18th in charge, six behind Gould’s NSW record.
Mal Meninga is the only coach who has gone lasted more than six consecutive years and when you win eight in a row, it’s a lot easier to last the decade that he did as Maroons mentor.
Blues coach Brad Fittler. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
It’s a different type of intensity being an Origin coach, particularly for the NSW team, than you get in NRL clubland.
Months of planning goes into three marquee events. The stakes of each minute of each contest are higher. Planning needs to be meticulous but there’s a large element of luck that comes with the role.
You can have multiple contingency plans at the ready but there’s not much you can do about Latrell Mitchell tearing a calf muscle a few days before the series opener, or Nathan Cleary tearing a hamstring while making an innocuous cover tackle for Penrith or Api Koroisau coming off second best while trying to tackle a Maroons forward while not even in Origin combat.
But it’s the self-inflicted wounds that coaches in this three-chance series can’t afford.
Like picking Tevita Pangai jnr when a few of your preferred middle forwards are unavailable. And then compounding the error by starting the match with him.
Then he overplays his hand by trying to make too much of an impact.
Who could have seen that coming? Anyone who has watched his entire career full of erratic performances at Brisbane, Penrith and Canterbury.
The Blues have rarely been able to knock Queensland to the canvas early in a contest since 1980 and it was a low-percentage play at best to think Pangai was going to do much, if anything, to sit the Maroons on their backsides in Adelaide.
But that is not the only reason the proverbial blowtorch has been applied to Fittler this year and last in particular.
The arrival of Billy Slater onto the Origin coaching scene has highlighted the stark differences in their approaches.
Billy Slater and Ben Hunt celebrate the 2022 series win. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Slater looks like he has taken the elements of some of the great coaches he played under and used that to quickly establish his own identity.
The intensity of Craig Bellamy from his many years as his fullback at the Storm, the aura of Meninga from his Queensland coaching days, the sense of camaraderie that Kevin Walters brought to the Maroons.
Once he decides he wants to try his hand in the NRL, the race for his signature will make a multitude of club chief executives move as quickly as their ageing, deskbound bodies allow them to get him to sign on the dotted line.
The hype surrounding the entry into the coaching game of “next big things” Craig Fitzgibbon, Cameron Ciraldo and Jason Ryles in recent years will be nothing compared to the hullabaloo that Slater will cause.
Fittler is no mug, despite what his detractors claim.
He was a skilful operator as a player, particularly in the second phase of his career at the Roosters when he made the transition from fast-stepping young Panther with individual brilliance to an astute playmaker who made all his teammates better.
As an Origin coach, he was successful in three of his first four years at NSW by uniting the Blues, never an easy task when the players come from a traditionally wider mix of clubs than Queensland.
Offbeat methods such as earthing to get your feet into the soil at training are portrayed as mad professor when the wins are coming but professed to be bad when the results go the other way.
Fittler has pretty much conceded that his contract will not be renewed if he loses the Origin for the second straight year to the Maroons.
His players know it and just like at NRL level, they’re already starting to pre-emptively stick up for him by saying he’s not the one out on the field making the errors. The usual schtick that footballers, naturally loyal foot soldiers, trot out when the nasty old hacks in the media do their job by telling it how it is – losing coaches don’t last long.
Despite what the occasional cheerleader in the media will tell you, the truth is out there – Fittler’s time is nearly up.
That is not to say he can’t get the Blues out of the hole they created for themselves with their late capitulation in Adelaide to lose 26-18 in game one.
The absence of Cleary, Mitchell and Koroisau are significant but not fatal blows.
Over most of the 43 years of Origin, the Queenslanders have gone into the contest at a talent deficit.
But they’ve managed to claim the shield 10 more times than the Blues.
Queensland celebrate their 1995 State of Origin triumph. (Photo: Getty Images)
The secret to success as an Origin coach has never been confined to just one method.
Whether it’s Gould, Meninga, Wayne Bennett, Arthur Beetson or even Paul Vautin briefly in the 1995 upset of the century, they’ve found their own ways to inspire their team.
Fittler is not all of a sudden going to unveil intricate set plays to NSW to get them out of this jam. Changing his overall approach this late in the process would be bound to fail anyway.
In 2018, ‘19 and ‘21, the Blues were the superior side because they played like a team, not a collection of elite talent.
With all the comings and goings in his squad from Adelaide to Brisbane, it’s going to be extremely tough for Fittler to achieve the cohesion required this Wednesday night to take the Queenslanders down on their own turf to force a live series finale in Sydney next month.
But that’s the mythology of Origin, which doesn’t solely belong to Queensland – defying the odds, silencing the critics and laughing loudest by doing so last.
And, unlikely as that scenario is right now, that would be a great way to go out as Blues coach.
But if he can’t pull off this minor miracle, he would still finish as a series-winning coach in a respectable three of his six attempts but a decision on Fittler’s future probably won’t be left in his hands but one that’s made by the NSWRL directors.