Four-time premiership coach Ivan Cleary has called out the ruthless nature of being an NRL head coach and warned against clubs being too hasty to sack their mentors. The Penrith coach’s comments follow Brisbane’s shock decision to sack Kevin Walters in the off-season and replace him with Michael Maguire, despite guiding the Broncos to the grand final just 12 months prior.
Maguire has already stamped his mark on the Brisbane club with his renowned no-nonsense approach to discipline and hard work. The veteran mentor was brought in to improve the culture at the club and has already had plenty to deal with in his first month as Broncos boss, with the fallout from Ezra Mam’s police charges for alleged drug driving presenting his first major test.
It remains to be seen whether Maguire can turn the club’s fortunes around after a disappointing 2024 season where they finished 12th and missed out on the finals. But Cleary’s own experiences of being a head coach suggest the Broncos may have been better off sticking by Walters and giving him the opportunity to get them firing again in 2025 after a dip in form this year.
Speaking on Triple M’s The Rush Hour with Gus & Jude, the Penrith coach said he “100%” believes clubs are too quick to sack their coaches. And Cleary says his own experiences have taught him that some of the best lessons a head coach can learn come through failures, and that it’s imperative to give them time and a strong support network in order to succeed.
“Most coaches go into jobs, head coaching roles when (the team) is not necessarily ready to win,” Cleary said. “There’s not many teams looking for new coaches that are doing well. Until you’ve actually been a head coach in professional sport, like you could have been an assistant your whole life, but it’s just so different.
“There’s things you can only learn on the job and you need support for that. You need some time. You’ve gotta go through some hard times and make mistakes I think to become the best version of yourself.”
Cleary is regarded as one of the best coaches in the game after masterminding Penrith unprecedented four straight premierships in the NRL era. But he admits it took a lot of time and countless failures to get to this point.
“It took 14 years as a head coach until I was involved in a premiership win so you definitely learn a lot over the years and that’s part of the trick to be able to use those learnings and make the changes you need to,” he said. “Change is not easy and especially in yourself, I guess you’ve got to accept your shortcomings and understand your strengths…
“It just so happened with that little opportunity I had to come back to the Panthers, I just had a really good feeling that I wasn’t just going to be suitable for them, I think it was the other way around as well… I knew there was a great team of young kids there that were ready to do something special. But it’s turned out to this point like nothing I could ever have dreamed of.”
While Cleary’s comments suggest the Broncos may have been too hasty to sack Walters, a recent admission from Brisbane prop Payne Haas that the team “needed to work harder” at training indicates why the club may have run out of patience. “I was watching some of the other boys in the NSW team. The way they did things… I felt like we could be doing things better at the Broncos,” Haas told The Courier Mail. “I took away a lot from what ‘Madge’ (Maguire) said and what he stands for. That Origin camp made me think about how I should approach being in this team.”
