Brad Fittler is set for a 12-month extension to his contract with New South Wales despite losing two series on the trot to Queensland.
Reports emerged on Thursday that Fittler will be tasked with another crack at Origin in 2024, but with a beefed-up backroom staff including an active NRL assistant coach and, potentially, Newcastle director of football Peter Parr as team manager.
If he is extended, Fittler will become the longest-serving coach in Blues history, surpassing Phil Gould’s record.
The NSWRL has indicated that no decision on the coaching set-up will be made until the end of the month when the board next meets and Fittler presents a review to the directors.
Freddy currently has a 50% record as coach and has lost three of the last four series, though he did win the third match in 2023.
Multiple media outlets on both sides of the world are reporting that Justin Holbrook, the recently sacked Titans coach, has been offered a return to head coaching almost immediately with a move to Warrington Wolves.
He has only been out of work for six weeks and had been touted as a potential replacement for Adam O’Brien at Newcastle, but could instead return to the UK, where he previously won a championship with St Helens.
Warrington only sacked their previous coach, Daryl Powell, on Sunday following a string of defeats that has left them scrapping for a spot in the finals despite having started the season with eight consecutive wins. They have gone 3-12 since.
Holbrook was interviewed this week and has now been offered the job, with several figures reporting that he has accepted and will take up a four-year deal at The Wire.
Ex-Titans coach Justin Holbrook. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
NRL players will not tape over the NRL logos on their jerseys this round after the Rugby League Players Association called off that action – though it is far from the end of the action planned by the players in the ongoing CBA dispute.
The tape over the NRL logo captured the attention of fans last week, but was only designed as a one-off and not to be an ongoing campaign.
Other options, such as delaying kick-off times and boycotting the Dally M Awards, are still on the table, as is the nuclear option of a player strike.
The media boycott on non-match days has now entered a second month and will continue, with no interviews to be given to broadcast or print journalists on days when matches are held, essentially blocking out content from Thursday through to Sunday.
Craig Bellamy expects in-demand prop Payne Haas to stay put at Brisbane but says Melbourne are very interested if he decides to shift NRL clubs.
Widely rated as the game’s best front-rower, Haas is signed with Brisbane through to the end of the 2024 season, but is free to negotiate with rivals from November 1 this year.
The NSW Origin star said he intended to test his market value – set to command up to $1 million – with a major proviso that the club he signs with shapes as a title contender.
Winning five grand finals under Bellamy and a regular starter in the play-offs, Melbourne fit the bill, while the Broncos sit second on the ladder after last year missing the finals. Bellamy said he would love to have the 23-year-old on the Storm roster but was unsure if the Victorian club, who already have a bevy of big names, could fit him into their salary cap.
He also thought the pull of staying with Brisbane, where he started his career could be strong. “If you ask 17 coaches they’d all say they’re interested in Payne Haas,” Bellamy said on Thursday.
“We’d love to have him at our club but whether we could afford him or whether he wants to come … he’s at a pretty strong club at the moment with the Broncos obviously.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
“He’s at the club where he started his career so I think he’d be pretty hard to get out but we’d be very interested if we could find a way to do it.”
Haas was reportedly set to sign with Melbourne as a 17-year-old before then Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett called him at the airport and convinced him his future lay with the Broncos.
Bellamy couldn’t recall the details of how the deal fell through.
Haas’ manager Ahmad Merhi told AAP last month that Haas would test the open market from November 1 and that he wanted to be part of a club that will do the best on and off the field for his future.
Broncos coach Kevin Walters has said on several occasions that he believed Haas would remain “a Bronco for life”.
Despite all the speculation about his future, assistant coach John Cartwright said on Wednesday it was water off a duck’s back to Haas. “Nothing seems to bother Payne,” Cartwright said on Wednesday.
“He keeps his football totally separate. When Payne comes to training you wouldn’t know what is going on outside of what he needs to do here.That is one of his strengths. He has a steely resolve. All the noise and whatever else is happening around him is going to look after itself.”
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