“Queensland is now an AFL state,” outgoing AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan triumphantly declared on Melbourne radio last month, claiming his code has more players north of the Tweed than rugby league.
Well, it depends on how you count them. If you count a kid who is given a free ball or backpack at an Auskick clinic equal to a kid who plays a 13-a-side game of rugby league adjudicated by a referee, then maybe Aussie rules is ahead in Queensland.
AFL is certainly well advanced in the education of coaches, with the NRL only now seeking to adopt its 2006 “Next Coach” course, a program designed to educate emerging head coaches. All current AFL coaches have completed this course.
Thirty years ago, rugby league had a four-grade coaching accreditation system, from mini league all the way to first grade. It basically collapsed with the demise of the Rothmans-sponsored national coaching scheme and the Super League war.
Face-to-face coaching was largely replaced with an online system where future mentors learn via computer. A level one course today requires coaches to “work through e-learning modules”.
NRL head coaches will admit privately that players “graduating” from the lower-tier competitions are not as well coached as a decade ago, being devoid of certain skills and game nous.
Wayne Bennett at a Dolphins training session earlier this season.Credit: AAP
Many players aged 18 or 19 can pass only one way and put their heads in the wrong position, or arm grab, when making a tackle.
Watch a warm-up and some players pass the ball off the wrong foot. If they are executing incorrectly pre-game, the errors multiply in the stress of a match.
NRL head coaches question the ARL Commission’s ambition to run a 20-team NRL competition in 2027. The “where are they going to get the players from?” question is really “where are they going to get the coaches to coach those players?”
Fortunately, some influential rugby league people, such as Roosters chairman Nick Politis, have come out publicly and identified the root problem.
Roosters chairman Nick Politis.Credit: Daniel Munoz
“There’s enough players for 20 clubs but we need better quality ones,” he said. “We need some form of a coaching college to prepare the coaches of the pathway kids. Something where they get a certificate at the end.”
Well, rugby league had such a system when one of Politis’ best mates, John Quayle, ran NSW Rugby League.
Peter Corcoran, rugby league’s national director of coaches and referees for 30 years, recalls a time a coaching academy thrived at Narrabeen and annual camps were held at Armidale, Brisbane and Townsville.
Current first-grade coaches graded trainee coaches as they imparted skills to young players. He recalls a time in the mid-1980s when a Wayne Bennett would supervise a Michael Hagan teaching a Matty Johns.
‘AFL is eroding our base in Queensland … Coaching the coaches is the answer.’
Darryl Van de Velde
(In 1985, parents Gayle and Gary Johns drove Matty to Armidale from Cessnock for a skills camp. Joey accompanied them but was too young to be enrolled. He point-blank refused to enter the car for the return journey, insisting on staying at the week-long camp with the big kids. Corcoran was forced to enrol him under “exceptional circumstances”. Joey was voted the best player in his – extended – age group).
“Online coaching doesn’t teach you how to coach,” Corcoran says. “You need face-to-face education for three key learnings. One, how to coach skill. Two, how to set up a weekly/season program; and three, how to handle yourselves on game day.”
He argues coaching courses developed in conjunction with academia tend to be generalised, physical education-oriented and not specific to a sport.
Brian Canavan, a long-term administrator and consultant to the NRL on coach education, partly agrees.
“The online content today is very good but it’s not the same as face to face,” he says. “We still have level one, two and three coaching courses but they are not funded to the same level as in the past.”
Whereas a coaching certificate might now be obtained following a sideline check of skills, it is not as costly as transporting candidates and coaches to week-long courses.
Darryl Van de Velde, a former first-grade coach in Brisbane and Super League, acknowledges McLachlan’s boast.
“AFL is eroding our base in Queensland,” he said. “Coaching the coaches is the answer.
“Apart from the basic skills, we’ve got to teach players game awareness, how to avoid concussion and how to come back from a loss.
“Otherwise, we’ll wake up one day when it’s all too late.”
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