Mount Coachimanjaro – The NRL Coaches Equipped to Take Their Clubs to the Top.
Adding to the coaching upheaval that started with Anthony Griffin’s dismissal from Penrith, a number of other established first grade coaches will most likely be taking up positions elsewhere in 2019. With Wayne Bennett’s tenure at the Broncos looking more and more likely to grind to an abrupt halt, and Trent Barrett allegedly throwing in the towel in Manly, speculation as to who will be next to go has engulfed the NRL.
With so much contention surrounding each of the aforementioned coaching situations, the question really is how much of a club’s position on the ladder be attributed to the coach? With that very question in mind, the 12&UNDERTAKER now offers their unsolicited Coaching Power Rankings.
Above is a list ranking all 16 current NRL coaches by win percentage per the Rugby League Project. Interestingly enough, the top 8 coaches in career win percentage occupy the top 8 positions on this year’s NRL ladder with only one exception. Stephen Kearney is having a career year while Paul Green and the Cowboys are having one to forget.
The two coaches at the top of the list (Cameron Ciraldo and Anthony Seibold) and the two occupying the bottom two spots (Garth Brennan and Dean Pay) are all in the infancy of their coaching careers in first grade and really don’t have the sample size to be considered seriously in this list (although if rumours out of Red Hill are to believed, the Broncos beg to differ)
The other interesting trend is the correlation between win percentage and premierships. Ricky Stuart is the only coach on the list with a losing career record and a premiership trophy in the cabinet.
The Apex:
Wayne Bennett: 809–501–294–14 – 61.9% – 7 Titles
Craig Bellamy: 416–283–131–2 – 68.0% – 2 Titles
A case can be made for either as top coach in the NRL. Bennett has an overwhelming historical case having won 7 premierships at two different clubs while Bellamy has owned the last decade with the Storm. However, how much you believe that the salary cap scandal that engulfed the Storm in the late 2000’s was responsible for Craig’s impeccable record as a coach will greatly affect your opinion on where he belongs on this list.
Both coaches have a knack for finding undervalued players that end up making large contributions to the club. Bennett has been able to bring ‘troubled’ players under his wing (see Matt Lodge or James Roberts) while Bellamy has churned out premiership contenders by retreading discards from other clubs (Addo-Carr) or even other codes (Vunivalu and Asofa-Solomona)
Bellamy has undoubtedly been a benefactor of the golden generation of talent at the Storm, but his ability to constantly integrate mid to low salary team mates into his system whilst such a large chunk of the salary cap has been committed to the ‘big three’ can not be underestimated. His structures are rigid, but he is able to make subtle adaptations to suit the talent at his disposal – which is why he has been so successful, while his former assistants seeking to install his system elsewhere have struggled.
Bennett would not be thrilled with where his team finds itself in 2018, yet there is only so far you can take a team with a makeshift halfback. Given the amount of money the Broncos ponied up for Jack Bird, (who isn’t even playing) when centre wasn’t a position of need, 8th position on the ladder sounds about right.
If you were going to criticise Bennett, it would be for the Broncos recruitment the last couple of seasons. Like an old man who has decided he wants to own a sports car, the Broncos have gone out and signed Anthony Milford (who has not made the leap) and Jack Bird (who, based on the Maccas wrappers spilling out of his car when he opens the door, physically can’t leap) – when a more practical second hand sedan like Blake Green would have been the more sensible purchase.
With that all said, if you had to go out and win a premiership to save your life, the two blokes with 9 (or 11*) between them would be a pretty good place to start, which is why they are at the top of the list.
The Second Tier: The Coaches Who Have Been to the Summit
Trent Robinson: 152–96–56–0 – 63.2% – 1 Title
Paul Green: 130–73–57–0 – 56.2% – 1 Title
Shane Flanagan: 179–98–79–2 – 54.7% – 1 Title
Ricky Stuart: 365–176–187–2 – 48.3% – 1 Title
The one measure held above all else in coaching is winning premierships, and so, the second tier of the rankings is made up of coaches who have done just that – delivered a premiership to their club.
Each of these coaches has proven that, if given the correct tools at their disposal, they can land the big one. The idea of a ‘premiership window’ is a common refrain amongst Rugby League pundits, and these coaches have all proven themselves capable of delivering in a window.
If you buy into the idea of a premiership window then you believe that a squad made up of bonafide stars, complimentary players on undervalued contracts, and break out performers on rookie contracts has a brief time in which they can win the premiership together.
The way Bennett and Bellamy differentiate themselves from the coaches in this tier is that by prolonging this window by getting more out of lesser players, developing more young players, and convincing stars to take less money (or take it in brown paper bags instead).
Ricky Stuart is a begrudging addition to this tier. His excellent debut campaign with an experienced Roosters side culminated in the 2002 premiership and was followed by gut wrenching defeats in the grand finals of 2003 and 2004.
Stuart’s blistering start to his coaching career has proven to be the exception to the rule – having tumultuous tenures at the Sharks and Eels before arriving at his current club – The Raiders, where he may not have lasted so long if it weren’t for his legendary status at the club as a former player.
The Third Tier: Good Coaches with Bad Climbing Equipment
Paul McGregor: 108–54–54–0 – 50% – 0 Titles
Ivan Cleary: 292–138–151–2 – 47.3% – 0 Titles
Nathan Brown: 220–94–125–0 – 42.7% – 0 Titles
This group of coaches each have proven themselves as coaches by outperforming the expectations placed on the squad at their disposal.
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McGregor boasts a 50% win rate despite modest expectations for the club in each of McGregor’s first two seasons in charge. 2018 was the first year that many expected the Dragons to compete for a finals birth. For all his gumption, McGregor’s coaching has an obvious flaw – his inability to properly utilise the interchange bench has seen his squad fade horribly in the back end of seasons.
Similarly, Ivan Cleary has outperformed expectations with a Tigers squad that had been pillaged of its biggest names prior to his appointment as coach. Cleary has proven himself to be a capable coach, taking the Warriors to the Grand Final in 2011, and earning coach of the year honours with the Panthers in 2014.
However, despite being able to instil a strong culture at a clubs – as evident at Wests Tigers in 2018, Cleary’s tactical nouse has some question marks. His defensive structures proved extremely effective in the early rounds, but as the season has worn on the results have been unsustainable. As is the case with McGregor at St. George, Cleary’s system will need refining if they are to compete in September.
Brown is the most dubious member of this tier. He certainly had some success in his first coaching stint at St. George, finishing 2nd on the ladder in 2005. However, having collected consecutive wooden spoons to start his second effort in the NRL, it would seem reasonable to ask just how little could be expected from him and his charges at the Knights.
With a vastly improved squad in 2018, the Knights have shown definite signs of improvement, helped in no small part by the sublime form of new recruit Kayln Ponga and some steady playmaking from new halfback Mitchell Pearce. Bringing together a coherent game plan with such a tremendous roster upheaval is not easy, and 2019 will provide a better insight into where Nathan Brown belongs on this list.
The Fourth Tier: Coaches Who Should Have Climbed Higher.
Brad Arthur: 125–58–67–0 – 42.7% – 0 Titles
Trent Barrett: 70–29–41–0 – 41.4% – 0 Titles
Stephen Kearney: 87–30–56–1 – 34.5% – 0 Titles
This tier is occupied by the coaches who have failed to get the most out of talented squads.
Recency bias plays a big part in Brad Arthur’s place in this tier. Arthur rightly received a lot of praise for the sterling job he did of leading the club through the murky waters of their salary cap scandal, and if it weren’t for this year’s disappointing campaign he would have certainly occupied the tier above.
Despite being bounced from the finals in straight sets, their 4th place finish was an excellent result for Arthur and the Eels. However, having made key additions for their 2018 campaign, everybody expected a lot more from the Eels than to be battling it out for the wooden spoon.
Like Arthur, Trent Barrett has had the misfortune of guiding a club through troubling times. The Sea Eagles have been in turmoil this year, but like Arthur at the Eels, the talent at the Sea Eagles should be competing for more than avoiding last place.
Barrett has 7 (4 current) representative players at his disposal in 2018, yet hasn’t been able to transfer that quality in the dressing rooms into results on the pitch. His inability to handle the Jackson Hastings fiasco negatively impacted the squad and their wild form swings – beating the Eels by 50 points one week, only to be flogged by 30 points the next is emblematic of a coach that belongs in this tier.
To say that Kearney has ridden the coattails of his long term association with the coaches atop this list may be an overstatement, but it is unlikely that he would have been given extended opportunities to prove himself as a first grade coach without them.
As his 34.5% win rate would suggest, Kearney has had his struggles as a head coach and it is really only this season that we have seen anything resembling the consistency the coaches he deputised for would expect from their charges.
Kearney’s coaching style is a scientific study in whether or not good coaching is contagious. Having spent extended spells with two of the all time greats, Bellamy and Bennett’s fingerprints are all over the structures that Kearney has installed at the Warriors.
However, unlike Bellamy or Bennett, Kearney has not yet shown the ability to adapt those structures to the talent at his disposal – and his unconvincing deployment of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck as a ball playing fullback in the mould of Billy Slater or Darius Boyd is evidence of this.
The Fifth Tier: Coaches Still at Base Camp.
Cameron Ciraldo: 1–1–0–0 – 100% – 0 Titles
Anthony Seibold: 21–15–6–0 – 71.4% – 0 Titles
Garth Brennan: 21–7–14–0 – 33.3% – 0 Titles
Dean Pay: 21–6–15–0 – 28.6% – 0 Titles
The fifth and final tier is made up of coaches who are just beginning their career so rushing to any bold judgements would be done so without sufficient sample size.
There is an obvious difference between the win percentages of Ciraldo (who has just one game in charge to his name) and Seibold – who both have winning records, and Brennan and Pay who occupy positions at the bottom of the premiership ladder.
As is so often the case, young coaches tend to inherit flawed squads – it is much easier for the men in charge of a club to blame the coach for results than to admit their own mistakes in recruitment and roster construction, and so it is little surprise that two of our rookie coaches have struggled so mightily this season.
Seibold and Ciraldo are interesting exceptions to this, having both inherited squads capable of competing immediately. Not to take anything away from the excellent job Seibold has done at the Rabbits this year, but it begs the question, how interested do we think the Broncos would be in Seibold’s signature if he had been in charge of the Bulldogs or Titans instead.
