Nathan Brown Syndrome

So Brad Fittler is the newest coach in the NRL, lets hope for his sake that the Roosters give him the chance to; 1 prove he can coach, 2 build a team to take them forward and 3 grow and mature as a coach.

There is a real similarity here to the Dragons appointment as coach a few years back, a few knowledgeable rugby league heads believed that Nathan Brown would make a good coach and would one day take the reins of an NRL team. The Dragons just couldn’t wait to get their former player in to the top job and he took over with very little senior coaching under his belt, which may come back to haunt him at season end if the Dragons don’t win a few more games. Ideally Brown would have served as an assistant coach for a few years, then been thrown the top job, but what transpired was that he took the job and the team underachieved, here was arguably the most talented team in the competition who really only needed a coach who could provide the final spit and polish to get them a premiership or two, and a more experienced coach most probably would have got them there. Unfortunately they got a young coach, coaching some of his former team mates and backed by a supporter base that are desperate for a return to the golden years (or at least their first GF win since the 70’s).

Fast forward to round 18, 2007 and the knives have well and truly been sharpened, having lost a host of big name players, the ones they’ve got left are injured, meaning Brown has had more debutants then your average deb ball, and you’ll see the red and whites near the bottom of the ladder. Hopefully the powers that be at the Dragons and the supporters can see the error of times past and get over it, I’ve no doubt that Brown is a better coach today and will be better next season and sincerely hope that he is now given the chance to: 1 prove he can coach, 2 build a team to take them forward and 3 grow into one of the best coaches in the NRL. Sound familiar?!

This brings me back to Brad Fittler, the biggest difference here is that the team is already looking to rebuild and move toward next season and beyond, they can’t go much further down! But there are certainly similarities to Nathan Browns appointment, the fact he is a former Roosters player (a very bloody good one), there had been some talk about his possible coaching in the future (pretty important word that one, not today, future), the Roosters tried to hold off his appointment by signing Chris Anderson, but they really wanted Fittler the whole time to be head coach, and he really doesn’t have much of an apprenticeship under his belt! Remember one of the leagues greatest ever players one, Wally Lewis tried his hand at coaching at this level and didn’t succeed, I hope that one of the modern day greats is given the chance to:

1 prove he can coach
2 build a team to take them forward
3 grow and mature as a coach!

I had written this the week leading up to Fittler’s first game as coach, the Roosters subsequently won that first game under their new coach but this is not uncommon for teams to perform like this after mid season changes, lets just hope that they can keep it up!