Rugby league great Brad Fittler has revealed how Wayne Bennett’s “simple” approach to coaching has helped him throughout his own career.
Fittler, the current coach of the NSW Blues, has emerged as one of the game’s most promising coaching prospects and this season has found his name linked with a number of vacant NRL head coaching roles.
Since becoming the coach of the Blues in 2018, Fittler has won three of the past four series.
But back in 2011, Fittler, not long after enduring a disappointing ending to his career as coach of his former side the Roosters, spent some time coaching alongside Bennett for the NRL All Stars clash that year.
Asked about that experience, Fittler opened up on what he learnt from Bennet as a coach.
“He allows people to be themselves, which is something I’ve really tried to work on,” Fittler told Wide World of Sports’ Freddy and the Eighth.
“You walk away sometimes a little bit underwhelmed. But that’s the key to him, he doesn’t really do much.
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“He’s very simple. You can tell, his defences are the things he understands and tries to get across to his team
“He does it in a real simple manner. You can see always, all of his teams build over the season… he allows them to come together.
“In the short time I spent with him, they’re the couple of real basic things.
“The hardest thing to do is you’ve got to keep your nerve because you panic. Everyone panics and they want to fix people.”
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Before taking the Blues job in 2018, Fittler had previous experience as a head coach for the Roosters between 2007 and 2009. After a successful first season, things turned sour and he was eventually sacked with a 43 per cent win rate.
After taking over the Roosters mid-season in 2007, Fittler guided the club to a top-four finish in 2008 but was unable to build on that, with the Tri-colours finishing with the wooden spoon in 2009.
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