Time is now for Walker brothers to coach in NRL
Joel Gould |
The man who appointed Ben and Shane Walker in their successful re-imagining of rugby league as Ipswich coaches has urged NRL club officials to unleash the duo as mentors at the highest level.
Several battling NRL clubs are set to make big calls on their coaches, the Gold Coast Titans one of them, and Ipswich Jets chairman Steve Johnson has some advice for their boards, owners and CEOs.
“It is not brave and courageous to appoint Ben and Shane as NRL coaches. It is stupidity not to,” Johnson told AAP.
“They are proven winners and they have a style of play like the great coaches. The great coaches don’t react to what other teams do. They might make amendments to how they do things, but they stay true to their style.
“In modern rugby league, how many coaches have a style? A lot of them have looked in the mirror and copied each other.
“Peter V’landys is after excitement. Well, Ben and Shane will deliver that and take it to another level. If you want this game to be a showpiece of brilliance, then bring on Ben and Shane.”
The Jets, who play in the Queensland statewide competition, will on Saturday celebrate in Ipswich the 10-year anniversary of their 2015 Queensland Cup and NRL State Championship title success under the Walkers. The club also won the BRL competition that year, and players will descend on North Ipswich Reserve to reminisce.
The Walkers, former NRL players themselves, became known for the flair and innovation they brought to rugby league, but Johnson said it was time to bust myths about the so-called “risky” way they are alleged to coach.
The duo had been coaching the lower grades at Burleigh when Johnson first spoke to them about joining the Jets.
“They were perceived to be so radical that they were a danger to appoint. Some well-known rugby league people warned me against it, but I had one conversation with them and they impressed me with their ‘Rain Man’ knowledge of rugby league,” Johnson recalled.
“They knew it inside out and laid out their plan of how they would revolutionise the game with how they attacked.
“They came to the Jets as assistants to Glenn Lazarus in 2010, and at that time we were playing the same football as everybody else.”
The Jets got the 2010 wooden spoon and Johnson interviewed them for the top job.
“The first thing they said was that they wanted to re-sign the same playing squad that got the spoon,” Johnson said.
“I said to them when I gave them the job that footy games are not won 84-83 and that I wanted to see them show me their defence before unleashing their attack.
“They went away and produced outstanding defence back-to-back-to-back and it lasted for the entire nine years they were here, along with their unique attack as well.
“I won’t go into too many of their secrets, but their attack was based on their defence and not the other way around. You can’t play Jets style without great defence.”
In 2010 when the Jets got the spoon they scored 384 points and conceded 627, with a -243 points differential. In the Walkers’ first season in charge the Jets scored 560 and conceded 386 for a +186 difference, a 429-point improvement, and made the finals.
During their nine seasons as Jets coaches, the Walkers had a winning record of 56 per cent and made the finals six times, missed the finals on the other three occasions by one win (two points), and won the 2015 Queensland Cup and NRL State Championships.
After the 2015 grand final, the Jets lost players to NRL clubs such as Kurt Capewell, Billy McConnachie, Josh Cleeland, Matt Parcell, Rod Griffin and Carlin Anderson in a sign of their great progress at Ipswich.
The Walkers became known for adopting the “contract football” made famous by the great Toowoomba coach Duncan Thompson. It was essentially, as once explained by Shane, “to give the ball to someone in a better position”.
“Contract football was about you having ‘a contract’ with the bloke in your team to follow him forward, and if he could promote the ball to you he’d promote it,” Shane said.
To understand what that attacking style looks like in the NRL, look no further than Sydney Roosters half Sam Walker, the son of Ben, who has 14 try assists in his six games this year. In a Walker brothers-coached side, all the players from 1-17 can play that way within their own styles.
Sam grew up at his father and uncle’s feet at the Jets absorbing “contract football” by osmosis.
“Everyone thinks that the Jets under Ben and Shane played unstructured football, and that is also rubbish,” Johnson added.
“Like Bill Belichick at the New England Patriots, the Jets had a plan for anything that might happen on a rugby league field, and we practised it
“Ben and Shane are great disruptors. Some of these changes to modern rules suit them perfectly and they will exploit them like no other coaches have.
“There was a system to why we had a 75 per cent recovery rate from short kick-offs and dropouts.
“A club that has three fullbacks like the Titans, if you want coaches to make that work successfully at seven, six and one then it is Ben and Shane.
“At the Jets we had 13 numbers on the field and they all had the skill-sets to do what was required at any time.”
The Walker philosophy is essentially also a simple one they learned under Wayne Bennett, which was to work hard at training, compete hard on the field, and show your skill. Current Warriors and Queensland star Capewell is the epitome of that ethos.
Another key reason Johnson insists the Walkers would make outstanding NRL coaches is their holistic approach to the club, not just the top 17.
“In 2015 we only used 42 players in two grades and won the comp in both,” he said.
“You could go to Jets training and not know who was first or second grade because Ben and Shane invested their time and care into all 42, with 32 of them coming from the Ipswich corridor.”
AAP
