Winners have parties, losers have meetings – but football clubs have honesty sessions.
If you’re searching for an explanation for why the Canberra Raiders are still standing in September, after having the first half of their season rocked by injury and the second half thrown off course after their coach was suspended, an honesty session in the pre-season is a wise place to start.
“I won’t go into it,” coach Ricky Stuart says before going into it. “We’re all great mates. There was no hate, we just needed to reconnect.”
Stuart prides himself on being a players’ coach. His personality prevents him from coaching any other way. But last year there was a serious disconnect with some of his senior players — and Stuart knew it.
First, hooker Josh Hodgson wanted out of the club. Then halfback George Williams got homesick and was released. Perhaps the most bizarre disconnection came when prop Joseph Tapine’s wife, Kirsten, took to social media to criticise Stuart’s forward rotation.
Stuart didn’t lose the dressing-room but it’s fair to suggest a corner of it wasn’t happy.
Canberra coach Ricky Stuart.Credit:Getty
So, during the pre-season, Stuart grabbed a handful of his senior players and staff, booked them into a hotel and they thrashed it out.
“We just laid it all out onto the table,” Stuart says. “I took them away for a night and we had a three-hour conference then a beer and a feed after it. I don’t want to get into how we did it, but we laid it all out on the table and we had a very, very honest communication among all 16 of us. Some key staff, some key senior players. It was the first day of reconnecting and learning more about each other.”
Stuart has learned a lot about himself in this, his 21st season as an NRL coach after winning a premiership in his rookie year with the Roosters in 2002.
He was 34 years old that season; only slightly older than the likes of Brad Fittler and Brett Mullins, both of whom he had played with.
Now 55, Stuart is much older than the young men he is coaching. “Absolutely, I’m a different coach … I’ve had to be.”
Any words written about the fiery former halfback must come with a disclaimer.
Many people believe Stuart is protected by his mates in the media. To some extent, that’s true. Report about someone long enough, especially one of the great survivors like Stuart, and friendships form.
Despite our many heated clashes, I’ve found it impossible to not like the angry little ant. He’s great company, passionate about his players and club, and his naivety about the modern world never ceases to entertain.
Once, a player fessed up to him that he’d been at a music festival and got into a fight in the mosh pit, the crowded area at the front of the stage.
“The mosh pit?” a confused Stuart asked the player. “Where’s that nightclub? I thought you said you were at a festival.”
His most endearing quality, though, is that you always know where you stand with him. He’ll stab you in the front and not the back — a rarity in rugby league — and I’ll take that over the duplicitous bullshit fed by most senior officials.
“You know who your mates are in tough times,” Stuart says. “I’m lucky with that — away from the club and inside it as well. We had a real tough start to the season. Not a lot of people had much faith in us. Our playing group did. We knew who our mates were.”
And it was a tough start.
The Raiders did so well to sign Jamal Fogarty from the Titans but then lost him for 12 weeks with a knee injury suffered in the final trial match against Manly. Six minutes into the first match of the season against the Sharks and Hodgson was ruled out for the year with an ACL.
It’s also been a tough finish.
Stuart was suspended for a week and fined $25,000 after he slammed Penrith utility Jaeman Salmon for lashing out with his boot at Raiders hooker Tom Starling.
It later emerged the bad blood stemmed from the under-12s when Stuart’s son and Salmon played together in the Sutherland Shire.
The Raiders snuck home against the Dragons in Stuart’s absence, keeping their finals hopes alive.
“We won so there was no harm done,” is all Stuart says of the enforced lay-off. He won’t even go into what he did during the suspension.
To me, that media conference perfectly captured the beauty and bane of Ricky John Stuart.
The question about the Salmon incident was the last of the media conference but instead of batting it away, he gobbled up the bait and “weak-gutted dog person” is now forever part of the rugby league lexicon.
Stuart is fiercely loyal and demands it return. He is loyal to nobody more than his family.
But sometimes that loyalty and emotion and anger bubbles up in an ugly way and often at times when subtlety, not a sledgehammer, is needed.
Stuart was suspended for one match over comments he made about Penrith’s Jaeman Salmon.
Stuart abused referee Ashley Klein in the lobby of a Brisbane hotel the morning after the 2008 World Cup final and it cost him his job a Kangaroos coach.
The last thing the Raiders needed with five matches remaining was to lose their coach.
Stuart didn’t believe he needed a week off but chief executive Don Furner, who has been best mates with Stuart since primary school, insisted he go.
Another assumption about Stuart is he has a job for life at Canberra, because of his relationship with Furner.
There’s no doubt he’s a favourite son. One of the dying wishes of chairman Allan Hawke was to extend Stuart’s contract and it was, in July, taking Stuart out until the end of 2025. Hawke passed away on August 31 following a brave battle with cancer.
But it’s not a lame-duck board and some directors ask questions when Stuart steps out of line. They certainly asked questions following the Salmon outburst.
When Stuart returned, he addressed the senior players, throwing it all out on the table.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he admitted before explaining his family’s history with Salmon — something Stuart refuses to divulge publicly or privately with anyone outside the club.
With that done, the Raiders went about beating Newcastle, Manly and the Wests Tigers to finish eighth and set-up an elimination final against Melbourne at AAMI Park on Saturday night.
All his senior players, particularly captain Jack Wighton, have aimed up but the Raiders’ turnaround is best embodied in Tapine, who has gone from wanting out of Canberra to being the best middle forward in the premiership.
“We were always challenging ‘Taps’ because he has this unique ability of being that best middle in the game,” Stuart says. “Understanding how the player wants to be coached, how you have to communicate with the player, has been important. But it’s also important for the players to understand the emotions of the coach, too. I’m lucky: my players understand me, as a person, which is from me opening up to them.”
This finals match is one Stuart relishes because he comes up against his former Raiders teammate Craig Bellamy, who coaches the Storm. Earlier this week, Bellamy admitted it was getting harder to coach because he’s getting older and has less in common with his players.
Stuart understood the remarks.
“Some days I feel like a counsellor, not a football coach, and I don’t think it’s fair at times,” Stuart says. “People have to understand coaches have emotions and certain traits. The players have been great understanding me as much as I understand them.
“I like managing people because I feel as though, if I manage them the right way, they’re going to be learning and when they’re learning they’re improving. When that’s happening, we’re winning games of footy.”
Bellamy, 62, also insists next year will be his last as coach. Has Stuart considered retirement?
“Bellyache’s 80!” Stuart roars before getting serious. “No, I’m not about to give it away. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen tomorrow or in five years. I’ll finish here when the job’s done … But I don’t want to get into that.”
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