MADGE OF HONOUR: GOING IN TO BAT FOR THE NZRL’S STANCE
Maybe he could have done both jobs.
But in giving Michael Maguire an ultimatum, New Zealand Rugby League took a belated stand against the Kiwis’ treatment as second-class representative citizens at the hands of the NRL and the ARLC in the name of the consecrated State of Origin arena.
For all the hype about supposed lobbying from a group of ex-Kiwis demanding Maguire be stripped of the Kiwis role if he took up the NSW Origin post, there’s no question this was a decision the NZRL board would have agonised over – and ultimately made with a heavy heart and some reservations.
Maguire was the architect of one of New Zealand’s greatest wins of all time – a record 30-0 drubbing of Australia in the Pacific Championships final – and has enjoyed a six-year stint (punctuated by a two-year international hiatus due to COVID) most would regard as successful.
Seeing the Kiwis through to the 2026 World Cup would have been a fait accompli for ‘Madge’ had the NSWRL not come calling, desperate for a change of coaching direction for its embattled Blues after Brad Fittler’s reign came to a dismal end.
Maguire rates among the most dedicated, professional and passionate coaches in rugby league, but the NZRL effectively – and quite fairly – declared they were unwilling for the Kiwis position to be anything but the coach’s top priority.
NZ Herald’s Michael Burgess, a friend of mine, made a strong, considered case (as per usual) contending the NZRL made the wrong call…almost had me second-guessing my stance for a second. Few others have backed up the pillorying with anything non-speculative and vague to back it up. The vast majority of anti-NZRL rhetoric, talking in absolutes – ‘he definitely could have done both jobs’, ‘this will come back to bite them’ etc – and taking cheap potshots at the governing body, is absurd, failing to take in the complexities of the situation.
A point that has not been made amid the anti-NZRL hysteria is that holding the Kiwis and an Origin job at the same time would have been impossible prior to this year. Aside from the COVID-ravaged 2020-21 seasons, the last time New Zealand did not have a mid-season Test was 1996. Following the horrific decision to permanently can the Anzac Test after 2017, the Australian brass again showed its disgustingly flagrant disregard for New Zealand and international rugby league by scrapping the representative weekend – consigning Test footy exclusively to an October-November window.
The medium- to long-term goal for the NZRL should absolutely be for the return of mid-season internationals – which obviously would preclude a coach from leading both the Kiwis and NSW or Queensland simultaneously.
I don’t begrudge Maguire taking on the Blues gig, or for choosing it over the Kiwis role. He’s an Aussie, Origin is the greatest challenge in rep coaching. But in accepting the Origin post, he made it quite clear about where his priorities lay.
And do you think the NSWRL would allow Maguire to pick up the New Zealand gig if he’d been the unencumbered Blues coach for the previous six years? Fuck no they wouldn’t.
Optics no doubt played a key part in the NZRL’s decision, but there’s substance behind it. If allowed to, Maguire would undoubtedly have given everything to New Zealand’s cause – but why should the Kiwis meekly accept being the guinea pigs for an unprecedented scenario?
The intensity of coaching Origin cannot be understated. In the space of a couple of series losses (and some disastrous selection calls that saw him destroyed by the press and the fans), it’s turned Fittler – whose only other commitments are cushy media roles – into a prickly, paranoid and emotionally exhausted shadow of his usually easygoing public persona.
Maguire will be completely absorbed by his debut Origin series from now until after the decider. Why else would he have quit his role as assistant to Ricky Stuart at Canberra? And it’s dubious that he will immediately be able to switch his attention to the Kiwis after putting his heart and soul into a draining Origin campaign. The NZRL also want someone who will put a bit of time and energy into the Kiwis’ cause throughout the year – not merely when they’ve finished all their bigger, more important jobs.
It’s extremely rare that a coach has held the Australian coach role at the same as being an Origin head coach. Arthur Beetson coached Queensland and Australia in 1983; the green-and-golds lost to the Kiwis for the first time in 12 years as Graham Lowe inspired a famous boilover at Lang Park. They tried it again with NSW’s Terry Fearnley – with disastrous results as the sacking of several Queensland players led to a humiliating 18-0 defeat to the Kiwis at Carlaw Park after escaping with narrow wins in the first two Tests.
The only coach to do double duty since was Wayne Bennett, who led the Maroons to a series win in 1998 then steered the Kangaroos (who contained nine of his Broncos) in two matches against the Kiwis, before surrendering both roles for 1999.
The all-consuming nature of Origin coaching is reflected in the shift away from NRL head coaches committing themselves to the interstate cauldron at the same time. The great Craig Bellamy was the last to do it for NSW, his fruitless three-year stint ending via the only 3-0 whitewash in the past 23 series in 2010. Queensland has not had a club coach in charge since 2005, aside from Bennett answering an SOS for the delayed 2020 series after Kevin Walters landed the Broncos job.
Maguire was an NRL head coach for one of the four seasons he coached the Kiwis in Test footy – 2019, his first year at Wests Tigers. He juggled them both with reasonable success from New Zealand’s perspective: a midyear win over Tonga, a convincing loss to Australia and a 2-0 home sweep of Bennett’s Great Britain side (who also suffered historic defeats to Tonga and Papua New Guinea on the same tour). Madge was axed by the Tigers prior to the Kiwis’ 2022 program starting.
Consider this example, though. Stephen Kearney is the Kiwis’ longest-serving and most successful coach ever, winning a World Cup, two Four Nations titles and achieving five wins and a draw against Australia in eight years in charge. ‘Mooks’ was a NRL head coach for only two of those years – 2011-12, the Kiwis’ worst years of his decorated tenure. The Kiwis lost five Tests to the Kangaroos in fairly convincing style and missed the 2011 Four Nations final via a disappointing loss to England.
After stepping down at Parramatta, Kearney took the Kiwis to the 2013 World Cup final, the 2014 Four Nations crown and their first Anzac Test win in 17 years in 2015 – New Zealand’s third straight Test win over Australia – before handing over the reins in late-2016 to concentrate on his upcoming role at the Warriors.
The conflict of interest issue is a vexed one. There’s a good chance it may never have come up, while I’m certainly not questioning Maguire’s integrity by suggesting he’d divert a potential Kiwi towards the Blues. But the conflict is real and obvious.
Given the eligibility flashpoints the Kiwis have been on the wrong end of – James Tamou, Josh Papalii, Ben Te’o, Jason Taumalolo, David Fusitu’a, Sio Siua Taukeiaho, Addin Fonua-Blake, Kalyn Ponga, as well as the Ronaldo Mulitalo fiasco, and even now Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, who has signed off on his Kiwis career in favour of Tonga after finally becoming a consistent top-class NRL player – you could forgive the NZRL for being a little jumpy about their coach also nurturing roughly half of each year’s crop of Kangaroos.
Five of the players who featured in the 2023 State of Origin series were born in New Zealand, while another few were Kiwi-eligible. The Kiwis need a coach who is actively campaigning for blue-chip talent to join our cause – not someone who is, best-case scenario, sitting on the fence.
Let me preface this next point by saying I’m a Maguire fan as a coach and a bloke, believe he’s done a fine job and would much prefer he’d carried on as Kiwis (but not NSW) coach for the foreseeable future. He took over when the Kiwis were at one of the lowest ebbs in their history. The Pacific Championships final victory seals his place in the pantheon of very good Kiwis coaches.
But has his stint really been that great? A record of 12 wins from 18 Tests reads well, while the Kiwis were impressively unbeaten on New Zealand soil with Maguire in charge. But just five of those 18 Tests were against the Kangaroos – a lower proportion than usual – which featured two outstanding wins at home bookending two heavy defeats in Australia and a gallant World Cup semi-final loss.
The Kiwis lost three of four Tests against England overseas before squaring the ledger with the 2-0 home series win in 2019 against Great Britain. The Poms haven’t won a Test against the Kiwis in New Zealand since 1992.
The near-miss in last year’s semi glossed over an otherwise underwhelming World Cup foray. The stacked Kiwis line-up bumbled their way through a weak group then almost got tipped up in the quarters by Fiji (again).
Similarly, the Kiwis were ordinary in Melbourne against the Kangaroos before producing a performance for the ages in the Hamilton-hosted final. Nothing can detract from what ultimately go down as Maguire’s last Test as New Zealand coach but, as it stands, it was a one-off.
The hysterical outcry over the NZRL’s polite-as-can-be stance is riddled with recency bias. The supposed golden era the Kiwis are/were on the cusp of remains a pure hypothetical. The uproar would have been but a murmur had the Kiwis lost the final.
How about a plug for the players who pumped the green-and-golds? We are in the midst of a halcyon period of Kiwi talent and depth – in spite of defections to Origin and/or Pacific nations. New Zealand reps are in the conversation for the game’s top bracket of players in almost every position, when previous watershed wins over Australia were routinely achieved with fringe first-graders and multiple players out of positions (though it should be noted Maguire’s charges did the 30-0 job with several top-liners unavailable).
Maguire has been lauded, perhaps justifiably so, for unlocking the fire in this Kiwis group. But if they need to rely on a coach (an Aussie one, for that matter) for motivation to put in for the black-and-white jersey, the NZRL has bigger problems. Encouragingly, if NZRL CEO Greg Peters’ statements on radio can be taken on face value, all players consulted on the Maguire decision were supportive.
So while the thousands-strong candlelight vigils commemorating the premature end of Maguire’s tenure continue to unfold, the NZRL will get on with the task of choosing a new coach.
Who should it be? Bennett – spruiked this week by Lowe – is a smoky, given he’ll finish up with the Dolphins this year, has an affinity with the Kiwis after helping mastermind the 2008 World Cup triumph, and has a thirst for international footy as evidenced by his (albeit patchy) stint as England/Great Britain coach.
A Maguire-esque hire with vast NRL experience appeals. Neil Henry springs to mind. No one else really stands out unless they went with someone who has been out of the saddle for a long time, like Geoff Toovey, or rolled the dice on, say, a David Furner.
The argument against hiring a Kiwi purely for the sake of hiring a Kiwi starts with Gary Kemble and ends with David Kidwell.
But the most obvious contender for the job is Stacey Jones – in many eyes the greatest Kiwi of all time and Maguire’s current assistant. I’ve seen claims he’s not ready. What? He’s been ensconced in the Warriors’ system for a decade as a successful NYC and NSW Cup head coach, an NRL assistant during some trying and triumphant years, and an NRL interim coach during the most challenging period in the club’s history. And that’s all on top of his time in the Kiwis set-up.
Jones has more relevant professional environment experience than arguably any new Kiwis coach bar Maguire. The only other Kiwis mentors to have previously coached an Australian premiership match were Daniel Anderson and the legendary Bill Kelly, who returned home to guide New Zealand into the 1932 series against England.
Whoever the NZRL goes with, there’s a better than even chance it will be a coach who can give the prestigious position the largely undivided, undistracted and unconflicted attention it deserves.
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