Phil Gould says it’s vital to make sure that every aspect of the Wests Tigers is in top shape, on and off the field, to give Benji Marshall the best chance to succeed.
In the wake of Marshall’s appointment as a coach at the Tigers, Gould urged the club to ensure that the rest of their house was in order.
Recalling times in the past where he’d spoken with outgoing head coaches, the Bulldogs boss said that it was the external factors outside of the game that gave them the most trouble.
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“It’s not the football and it’s not the coaching that beats them. They all know the game and they all know how to coach – it’s everything that goes with it,” Gould said on Wide World of Sports’ Six Tackles With Gus.
“If your club’s not set up right, if you aren’t taking a lot of the heat for the coach in a lot of other areas throughout the business … there’s a whole range of things that a club needs to look after that can’t just be left in the hands of the head coach.”
Gould went on to say that a lot of the current crop of would-be coaches that recently retired from playing are cutting their teeth solely in assistant roles, rather than at junior levels.
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“We’ve kind of lost our way in the development of coaches – mainly because a lot of the ex-players come straight out and they think that coaching is to be an assistant coach of the NRL, where I’d much prefer them to go back and coach an A-grade team, an under-16s team, an under-18s team, an under 20s team.”
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The over-arching point Gould made was that any coach would be well served to spend a few years underneath the NRL level, getting used to dealing with players, agents, and other external factors.
“It’s not just the X’s and O’s on a board about your attack and defence,” Gould said.
“They should have to coach younger teams – and get a feel for what it’s like to prepare training sessions, to prepare video sessions, to educate kids, to find out how players learn.
“Not every player learns the same way.”
While both Craig Fitzgibbon and Adam O’Brien have come into the NRL with their previous experience exclusively as assistant coaches, most other paid their dues elsewhere.
Jason Demetriou, who became Souths head coach this after a stint as an assistant, previously cut his teeth in both the Queensland and NSW Cup. Todd Payten was under-20s coach at Wests Tigers and North Queensland Cowboys, as was Cameron Ciraldo at Penrith.
Then there’s the litany of head coaches who also had gigs overseas – Trent Robinson at Catalans, Justin Holbrook at St Helens, and Michael Maguire at Wigan to name a few.
But Marshall will begin his time at the Tigers without that – although any player you speak to that dealt with him in the last few years of his playing career will praise his mentoring ability, and there are few better people to learn under than Tim Sheens.
“This is about having Wests Tigers DNA surging through the club, and it’s about putting together a rock-solid coaching plan for the next five years,” CEO Justin Pascoe said last week.
“This is a very clear path forward for this club and we are delighted to have Tim, Benji and Robbie reunited for the next phase of our club’s growth.”
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