NRL guru Phil Gould has backed Queensland legends Billy Slater, Johnathan Thurston and Cameron Smith to step up and coach the Maroons in the wake of Paul Green’s departure from the post.
The QRL released a statement yesterday afternoon confirming Green had decided he wouldn’t continue in the role, with a search for his replacement heating up.
Slater’s name had been bandied about throughout the course of the year as a potential successor to Green after the Maroons dropped the first two games of the series.
While the legendary No. 1 maintained his support for Green throughout his Origin tenure, calls for him to step up following the former Cowboys’ coach’s exit have been given new life.
Gould, NSW’s most decorated coach with six series wins to his name, believed it’d be a “wonderful” turn of events if Slater, alongside fellow greats Smith and Thurston, took on the Maroons responsibility, but implored them to seek the counsel of some experienced minds if they do so.
“It’s a nice thought, isn’t it? I’m sure they’d love to do it. As long as they don’t play,” Gould quipped on his Six Tackles with Gus Podcast.
“If those boys went in there to do that, those three great players, they would be stupid not to take Wayne Bennett with them in some capacity. Just to make sure of the mechanics of it.
“Those three boys would have no problem with the on-field stuff and probably the off-field stuff as well. But you’ve got Wayne Bennett, for god’s sake, available for doing it. What’s he going to do? Sit at home in his rocking chair and stare at the TV? I’d be going to him and saying, ‘look mate we really want to look after this Origin side. We’ll do all the work can you just come along and make sure we’re doing it properly?’
“It’d be wonderful. I love all the old Origin players jumping in to help out coaching with the team. A lot of them are doing it and you don’t even know they’re there.”
However, speaking amid the speculation, Smith insisted Origin coaching was not a challenge currently on his radar.
“My name has been tossed into this conversation, but I can tell you right now, I have not spoken to a single person at the QRL,” Smith said on Wednesday.
“That’s about this job, the vacancy or my interest in it at all.
“A head coaching role is not on my radar at the moment, it really isn’t.
“I’m really enjoying what I’m doing at the moment post-playing career.”
Smith believed Slater could be the perfect fit for the Maroons having spoken to him personally about taking on the role.
“I could certainly see him in there as head coach because he’s a guy who has always wanted to make a difference,” he told SEN.
“He always wanted to make a difference as a player, and I can see those same attributes as a coach.
“I think in the next two to three weeks we’ll probably find out a lot more. But I’d say he is the name that keeps getting thrown around.
“I’ve spoken to him at the very beginning of this year about his interest in coaching Queensland, and he said if it comes up he’d certainly consider it.
“He’s very passionate about the Queensland side, he’s a selector, he’s heavily involved already.”
Thurston was part of Green’s coaching staff this season and a step up to a senior position would seem a likely fit for the Maroons legend.
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