It takes a special person to be an NRL coach. So why do they do it? |
Study a defeated NRL coach in the dressing room after a loss, and he can look as if he has stepped into a grave: sunken, shallow, drained.
Meanwhile, some of his players are still on the field chatting brightly with the winners or kneeling, arms locked in prayer, with their opposites.
Across in the other dressing room, surrounded by a milling group of club officials and directors, the victorious coach is ebullient, joyful, relieved.
That scenario was only half right following the Storm’s home game against the Eels, the first match of the 2026 NRL season played on Australian soil.
Eels coach Jason Ryles was entitled to be devastated following a pathetic performance by his team in the 52-4 defeat. Melbourne’s Craig Bellamy admitted to being “pretty happy”, admitting he expected a “closer result”, following a pre-season competition won by the Eels and in which the Storm conceded 15 tries. He then proceeded to catalogue the mistakes of his players.
Ryles was a former player and assistant coach under Bellamy but the usual post-match fraternisation when the apprentice comes up against the master was non-existent. It would seem the Zac Lomax affair, which consumed so much of the oxygen leading up to the match, had more casualties than Lomax himself, now banished from the NRL for two years.
Highs and lows: Harry Grant scores another try in Melbourne’s big win over Parramatta.Credit: Getty Images
Despite his histrionics in the coaching box, Bellamy was relatively subdued, a surprise to many considering he started the match with a new look back row, centre and fullback, plus rookies on the bench and his record of winning every opening game since 2003 looked in jeopardy.
But the lifer coaches, like Souths’ Wayne Bennett and Bellamy, ignore the sting of words such as old, finished and selfish on social media. It is precisely these veterans who are best equipped to confront the myriad challenges to success.