Why do Coaches only have a period where they are successful?

[Mumby Magic]

Not many coaches have been successful at numerous clubs. Is it because they stay with their supposed tried and trusted techniques and can't think outside of the box?

Obviously Brian McDermott brought this question to mind but the same can be said for Ian Millward.

Who are the coaching one hit (club) wonders and who have literally been successful at more than one club.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Mumby Magic

[LeytherRob]

10 minutes ago, Mumby Magic said:

Not many coaches have been successful at numerous clubs. Is it because they stay with their supposed tried and trusted techniques and can't think outside of the box?

Obviously Brian McDermott brought this question to mind but the same can be said for Ian Millward.

Who are the coaching one hit (club) wonders and who have literally been successful at more than one club.

I wouldn't exactly put Millward in a one club wonder bracket. Both spells at Leigh he basically inherited a basket case and kick started a boom for the club. The year before he arrived in the late 90s we were whipping boys of the second tier and turned us onto promotion contenders, second spell he joined the off season we'd been reprieved from relegation to league 1 and put us straight back in contention for trophies. May only be second tier but it still takes some doing to perform 2 essentially 180 degree momentum shifts at the same club 10 years apart.

[Mumby Magic]

17 minutes ago, LeytherRob said:

I wouldn't exactly put Millward in a one club wonder bracket. Both spells at Leigh he basically inherited a basket case and kick started a boom for the club. The year before he arrived in the late 90s we were whipping boys of the second tier and turned us onto promotion contenders, second spell he joined the off season we'd been reprieved from relegation to league 1 and put us straight back in contention for trophies. May only be second tier but it still takes some doing to perform 2 essentially 180 degree momentum shifts at the same club 10 years apart.

Yep true, forgot about Leigh tbh.

[Farmduck]

I think you have to define success. If a team finishes on the bottom and the new coach gets them to 6th or 7th next year without any massive megastar purchases then I'd call that a success. In NRL, only Gould, Chris Anderson, Bennett and Sheens,  have won GFs at more than 1 club. One obvious reason is that three of them have been around for 30 years so their chances of achieving glory are better.

For the purpose of this thread I should also throw in Michael Maguire and John Monie who won in SL and NRL. Oddly, both of them had very short periods of glory, with GF wins only a couple of years apart, whereas Sheens had his 15 years apart and Bennett picked up 7 GFs across 23 years and got Souths to a GF in his 34th year as a head coach.

The answer? I don't know.

[DavidM]

Mention for Mal Reilly having success here then going to Oz (almost uniquely then ? ) and winning a Premiership with Newcastle 

[Bobby123]

8 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Mention for Mal Reilly having success here then going to Oz (almost uniquely then ? ) and winning a Premiership with Newcastle 

 

8 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Mention for Mal Reilly having success here then going to Oz (almost uniquely then ? ) and winning a Premiership with Newcastle 

Quote

Where do you start?. There must be a hundred reasons why the success rate of a coach dwindles. Players adopting a comfort zone, Injuries, Spats with men behind the scenes, key players leaving and not being replaced. The list is endless.

 

[Farmduck]

27 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Mention for Mal Reilly having success here then going to Oz (almost uniquely then ? ) and winning a Premiership with Newcastle 

I wondered about Reilly but didn't know anything about his UK coaching history.

[phiggins]

Tony Smith won trophies at Leeds and Warrington if that counts.

Generally a coach leaves for NRL, or gets sacked. So it’s going to be difficult to be seen as a success in multiple clubs I guess. 

[idrewthehaggis]

To be successful there is a need to have the talent. Sadly so much of the world is rigged by power elites that restrict the opportunities for that talent to be fulfilled. 

RL in the most part does allow talent to flourish. Even so to exploit it you have to have the psychology of intensity and discipline once you get that chance.. 

Thus it should be understandable that to maintain that intensity is often time limited. i  have heard many an artist friend talk of ten years being the golden spell where someone breaks their best work. (Think the Beatles, etc)

Second RL is a competitive game. You might be the best in season one, but there will be a eleven other coaches developing, innovating and progressing against you. Ready to knock you down.

[Jughead]

Depends what success is, doesn’t it? Salford, for example, have not won a major trophy under Rowley yet he’s been successful at Leigh, Toronto and Salford, in my opinion. 

 

[graveyard johnny]

at the start of the NRL season Craig Bellamy was hailed as maybe the best super coach of all time- by the end of the campaign his ageing. Injured mis firing unit had gone off the rails and there was nothing he could seemingly do to turn it round - the simple decision to let Nicho Hynes go to the sharks may have been his career brain fart and tainted his reputation as a coaching genius 

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, Jughead said:

Depends what success is, doesn’t it? Salford, for example, have not won a major trophy under Rowley yet he’s been successful at Leigh, Toronto and Salford, in my opinion. 

 

He did get us essentially relegated as well , Toronto is a difficult one , he basically shipped in the Leigh squad , then took the best of the rest of the Championship , and had them full time , still missed out on promotion , no argument about Salford ATM , next season will be the real test if he can maintain 

[yipyee]

Watson is doing ok at his second club after making 2 finals with the perennial unfancied Salford.

Tony Smith did great work at Huddersfield, Leeds, Warrington and Hull KR.

Mcdermott overachieved at London before getting the Leeds gig.

Hasn't the old Catalan coach won a GF in the NRL ?

Nobby, success at Bradford, did well at Crusaders (play off wins) and Toronto. Beat Aus in Aus with GB.

Edited September 27, 2022 by yipyee

[Sports Prophet]

7 hours ago, graveyard johnny said:

at the start of the NRL season Craig Bellamy was hailed as maybe the best super coach of all time- by the end of the campaign his ageing. Injured mis firing unit had gone off the rails and there was nothing he could seemingly do to turn it round - the simple decision to let Nicho Hynes go to the sharks may have been his career brain fart and tainted his reputation as a coaching genius 

I don’t think I can get on board with this line of thinking. There is ample evidence of the impact of losing just one key playmaker can have on a side. To all teams.

They only marginally missed the top 4, the first time since I can’t remember. All with ongoing issues with key players, but none more notable than the loss of Papenhouzen who I regard as the most devastating attacking force in the NRL.

There was no chance of retaining Hynes who, considering the lineup available, would have entered this season, fighting for a spot on the bench, let alone a starting position and immediate team leader with a pay rise like he gets at the Sharks. I wouldn’t call that a brain fart.

It wasn’t their most successful season and maybe only considered a failure by a squeak, his first for a very long time.

[DACS]

By the same token with Bellamy there's a big case to make that the synergy he had with Slater, Cronk and particularly Cam Smith made all the difference. The Storm have a history of developing players who then get poached by other clubs. That and their strong performances meant players were willing to join them for less than they could get elsewhere. As that mystique fades players will start to ask for market rates to play for the Storm and it will all get more difficult.

Leeds saw the same issue with the Sinfield era. We kept hearing about how everyone individually could have earned more elsewhere but chose to stay to win things and be part of the club. Problem is when the wheels start to fall off that model of cap management falls apart.

Gus Gould had some interesting thoughts on coaching longevity. He basically said that in almost all cases coaches have a shelf life with players, and eventually they just lose traction. I think he also used the Bellamy/Bennett cases as examples of where they help continually refresh things through their choice of assistants, and changing them every now and then. Certainly seems to be something to that given the number of their assisstants who have got gigs elsewhere.

[graveyard johnny]

3 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

I don’t think I can get on board with this line of thinking. There is ample evidence of the impact of losing just one key playmaker can have on a side. To all teams.

They only marginally missed the top 4, the first time since I can’t remember. All with ongoing issues with key players, but none more notable than the loss of Papenhouzen who I regard as the most devastating attacking force in the NRL.

There was no chance of retaining Hynes who, considering the lineup available, would have entered this season, fighting for a spot on the bench, let alone a starting position and immediate team leader with a pay rise like he gets at the Sharks. I wouldn’t call that a brain fart.

It wasn’t their most successful season and maybe only considered a failure by a squeak, his first for a very long time.

just saying Hynes can cover every position in the back line and halves admirably - injuries are inevitable and as a coach I would have fought tooth and nail to keep him at the club 

[JohnM]

Why do Coaches only have a period where they are successful?

..at a guess, because deep down, they are just like the rest of us, and the best of us, doomed to follow Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man.

Recall John Monie's second stint at Wigan.

[meast]

On 27/09/2022 at 20:03, phiggins said:

Tony Smith won trophies at Leeds and Warrington if that counts.

Generally a coach leaves for NRL, or gets sacked. So it’s going to be difficult to be seen as a success in multiple clubs I guess. 

And Huddersfield, he won a treble in his first full season as a coach over here.

He then took Huddersfield to their highest ever finish in super league in 2003, beating Leeds, Wigan and St Helens along the way.

[meast]

On 27/09/2022 at 20:15, Jughead said:

Depends what success is, doesn’t it? Salford, for example, have not won a major trophy under Rowley yet he’s been successful at Leigh, Toronto and Salford, in my opinion. 

 

Could say the same about Watson at both Salford and Huddersfield, in terms of relativity, he's been a success at both.

Winning trophies at Leeds, Wigan, Saints and to a point Warrington is probably regarded as successful but probably not so at Huddersfield and Salford.

 

[Gomersall]

On 27/09/2022 at 19:03, DavidM said:

Mention for Mal Reilly having success here then going to Oz (almost uniquely then ? ) and winning a Premiership with Newcastle 

Has there been a Pom head coach in the NRL since? None that I can recall.

[Gomersall]

On 27/09/2022 at 22:21, yipyee said:

Watson is doing ok at his second club after making 2 finals with the perennial unfancied Salford.

Tony Smith did great work at Huddersfield, Leeds, Warrington and Hull KR.

Mcdermott overachieved at London before getting the Leeds gig.

Hasn't the old Catalan coach won a GF in the NRL ?

Nobby, success at Bradford, did well at Crusaders (play off wins) and Toronto. Beat Aus in Aus with GB.

Noble wasn’t the coach at Toronto. 

[Gomersall]

On 28/09/2022 at 03:54, Sports Prophet said:

I don’t think I can get on board with this line of thinking. There is ample evidence of the impact of losing just one key playmaker can have on a side. To all teams.

They only marginally missed the top 4, the first time since I can’t remember. All with ongoing issues with key players, but none more notable than the loss of Papenhouzen who I regard as the most devastating attacking force in the NRL.

There was no chance of retaining Hynes who, considering the lineup available, would have entered this season, fighting for a spot on the bench, let alone a starting position and immediate team leader with a pay rise like he gets at the Sharks. I wouldn’t call that a brain fart.

It wasn’t their most successful season and maybe only considered a failure by a squeak, his first for a very long time.

When you’re there or thereabouts most years it’s a bit churlish to say Bellamy has been found out after one season not as successful as the previous ones.

[Gomersall]

45 minutes ago, meast said:

And Huddersfield, he won a treble in his first full season as a coach over here.

He then took Huddersfield to their highest ever finish in super league in 2003, beating Leeds, Wigan and St Helens along the way.

Quiz of the day. Smith only got the Huddersfield gig because at the time only overseas coaches with X amount of experience in the NRL or a coach of an international team were eligible for SL coaching jobs. Smith didn’t have the required NRL experience so, without Googling, which international job opened the SL door for him?

[Gomersall]

48 minutes ago, meast said:

Could say the same about Watson at both Salford and Huddersfield, in terms of relativity, he's been a success at both.

Winning trophies at Leeds, Wigan, Saints and to a point Warrington is probably regarded as successful but probably not so at Huddersfield and Salford.

 

 Winning trophies, or at least getting to finals, at Saints, Wigan and Leeds is probably expected rather than hoped for so their incoming coach has more quality to work with than most of SL.

[Gomersall]

Brian Smith turned Hull around in the late 80s. He left Hull at the top of the table and they went on to win the 1991 Premiership under Noel Cleal. He’s taken teams to 4 Australian GFs but has never managed a win. Success or failure? It’s all relative IMO.