Brisbane Broncos great Sam Thaiday has backed Kevin Walters to succeed as the club’s head coach, despite undergoing a difficult first season at the helm.
After a horror season in 2020 which saw the fallen powerhouse finish last, the Broncos managed seven wins in 2021 and eventually found their best football as the season wore on.
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Thaiday, who played 304 games for the club, said the struggles Walters endured in his debut season in Brisbane should stand him in good stead for 2022 and beyond.
“You’ve got to realise he’s still finding his feet in that role,” Thaiday told Wide World of Sports.
“I think he’s going to be a lot better because of this year and some of the adversity he had to face as a coach.
“He definitely evolved into a good coach towards the end of the season. He had a real direction and process and I could see things starting to stick with the players and the way they were playing footy.
“A pre-season ahead of him [and] some trial matches and hopefully we hit the ground running next year and we’re a much-improved team.”
Thaiday’s sentiment was echoed by Queensland rugby league legend Wally Lewis, who praised Walters for not giving up despite looking “a shattered man” at times.
“You could see that he was very disappointed, a shattered man, on a number of occasions, but he didn’t throw in the towel,” Lewis told Wide World of Sports.
“It was a tough year for him, extremely tough. Coming up with his own coaching style would’ve been extremely hard, particularly when he’s had the opportunity to be taught by some of the best coaches in the game, [Wayne] Bennett and [Tim] Sheens are just a couple of those.
“When you get in and try to put into your effect your own coaching style, it can be a lot more difficult.
“You’re working with a different playing staff, you’re working with different oppositions and to be able to come down and lock in something that doesn’t just suit the team, but suits the players as individual as well is a lot easier said than done.
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“Having gone down to cover [Broncos training] on a number of occasions, you could see the number of times Kevvie was scratching the back of head and looking around.
“It is quite openly the toughest role in rugby league, coaching, particularly when the expectations are so high.”
Both Lewis and Thaiday suggested Walters was given little chance to succeed due to the Broncos’ instability in the halves, which saw the coach deploy eight different combinations throughout the year.
“You’ve got two blokes out of the four most important positions on the field,” Lewis said.
“The No.1, No.6, No.7 and No.9, everybody agrees that they are the key positions, and to not have some stability there and be able to perform extremely well week after week makes it almost impossible [to succeed].”
“I think Kevvie’s probably found who he’s going to pair with Adam Reynolds next year, which is going to be great,” Thaiday added.
“Out of those guys [tried in the halves this season], I thought Tyson Gamble was probably the most consistent.
“Sometimes those guys didn’t give Kevvie an opportunity to continually pick them because of their own form and it does make it hard to win games when you’ve continually got a different halves combination every second week.”