Coaching is easy! Just ask Kieran Foran of the Manly Sea Eagles or Liam Finn of the Huddersfield Giants. Two coaches on opposite sides of the world who spent less than one week with their new charges after the previous coach was sacked.
Also, you know you're getting on when two current head coaches were players you had a bit to do with as a coach. I was with Foran when he started at Manly and with Finn at the 2008 World Cup with Ireland!
In Foran's case, it was a swift and decisive decision to install him as interim coach. Seibold sacked Friday, Foran was holding a pre-session meeting at 7:30am on Sunday morning.
17.000 kms away, seven days before their next match, Giants coach Finn wasn't even named as Huddersfield caretaker; instead, it was the Director of Rugby Andy Kelly who did the weekly press conference, and was expected in the coaches' hot seat, until he wasn't. Media and fans alike were surprised when it was Finn and not Kelly calling the shots on game day.
Foran was no doubt licking his lips at the possibilities ahead of playing the Dolphins away. It would definitely have been in the ‘could win' column for the Sea Eagles.
In contrast, Finn (when he eventually got the job) had a more arduous task. His Giants side, winless in five, were due to travel to Wigan, unbeaten in five and sitting pretty at the top of the Super League ladder.
The Sea Eagles had looked disjointed and laborious in their previous outings, all three of which were at home, once known as an impenetrable fortress. Huddersfield were an injury-ravaged mess with little going for them ahead of a trip to Wigan.
They beat the Wigan Warriors relatively easily in the end. 34-16, scoring six tries in the process, a stark contrast to the eight they'd scored in the previous five games combined. Imagine the Dragons letting loose in victory against the Panthers right now, and you'd get the idea.
And equally as potent were the Manly Sea Eagles in their demolition of the Dolphins. In a match that saw 70 points recorded, playing freely under ‘Foz', Manly scored 52 of them.
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Previous coaches Anthony Seibold of Manly and Luke Robinson of Huddersfield must have wondered where this form was, in both cases, only a week before.
The teams that previously looked straight-jacketed, laboured, hesitant and disjointed, were now free-spirited, hustling, brave and playing together.
And in both cases, there's a very simple lesson that Seibold and Robinson should consider. They were probably both guilty of overcomplicating things somewhat for their former charges. Too much structure where the ‘footy IQ' of the players is probably strong enough to make the right decision in the moment.
As the wins dried up, Seibold and Robinson would have been minded to work even harder, drilling down further into the minutiae of player habits, game plans and combinations. They probably planned their training sessions over and over, nervous about overloading their players, they may have ‘undercooked' them, or, conversely, the exact opposite.
Players are often very conscious of their coaches' behaviour. If the coach is nervous or undecided, players sniff that out. When their coach does too much talking, players don't need a second invitation to switch off and start thinking about other things. If their coach doesn't seem to have the answers, they pick up on that even quicker.
In the fall out from Seibold's departure, some suggested a fall out between senior players and coach was a cause. Not one person said Anthony Seibold had a poor football brain. Even immortal-in-waiting Cameron Smith described him as a ‘great coach'.
When he was sacked by the Brisbane Broncos in 2020, the noises were very similar. Luke Robinson was a former half-back who played 368 first grade games, and six times for England.
Yet both Seibold and Robinson couldn't elicit the kind of performance that the Sea Eagles and Giants produced after they'd gone. Such a large win by the Sea Eagles last happened a year before Seibold arrived at Brookie. Huddersfield last won at Wigan in 2019, when the Warriors weren't the force they are now, and the Giants weren't cellar dwellers.
One of the telling statistics of the last Sea Eagles game was the hit-up count of Jake Trbojevic. He more than doubled his previous recorded work rate in just the first half of the Dolphins match. His brother Tom was also on fire, form not seen for a good while.
So why does this happen? Why do Kieran Foran and Liam Finn all of a sudden look like Super Coaches?
Well, firstly, they're currently only caretakers. Even if they have designs to be career coaches, they are currently just warming the seat. If it doesn't work, they know they probably have enough support from the big hitters at the club to go back to their previous roles as Assistant. If it works, they know that the media and fans will call for a more permanent arrangement to be made.
Secondly, the players will realise they have to step up. The incumbent coach was their boss, yet he got punted, meaning they're all in the eye of the storm now. And, in the vast majority of cases, they won't have hated their coach, so they'll feel guilty. Either that, or they'll feel liberated now they've gone!
Nobody should get too carried away too early about the Foran and Finn rugby league revolution. They will both immediately get the respect of their new team when they walk into a room. The rookie coaches can ride that wave for a while.
But the real tests are only to come. The antennas of all opponents are now up, and a match versus the Sea Eagles or Giants is not a relatively easy two points all of a sudden.
Soon, the caretakers will have to get involved in contract disputes, injury management, managing the temperature of the group and the personal lives of their charges. The media will go in at different angles, too. Wait until a player agent leaks to the press that a star player might want to sign elsewhere.
Then, if they stay in position, building the roster not just for the next season, but one after that, then another, then another. Not to mention, planning and navigating the pre-season, the conditioning loads, the coaching of the players, the football ‘curriculum' they need to follow.
Sam Burgess is probably the closest recent example we have of what someone like Kieran Foran is facing. Big Sam was hired as Warrington Wolves coach with no head coaching and very little assistant coaching experience ahead of the 2024 season.
That first year, their performance was a lot better. Burgess, a titan of the game, had the respect of the players and the Wolves looked liberated and refreshed under him.
Yet 2025 was close to a disaster after a thrashing in Las Vegas and a finish well outside the play-off positions. The club were very, very close to sacking him. Instead, they opted to bring in a very experienced assistant in Steve McNamara, a man who himself has been a head coach for two decades. They are going better in 2026 and look a different team.
We could even go back to Brad Fittler's ill-fated period as Roosters coach between 2007 and 2009. They turned a corner under ‘Freddie' when he took over in Round 18 of the '07 season.
As full-time coach in 2008, they went out of the finals in straight sets despite finishing fourth, in 2009 a wooden spoon and a drunken and near naked coach in a Townsville hotel corridor at 3am were enough to end his club coaching career.
It's not easy this coaching caper, as Kieran Foran and Liam Finn will come to realise. But I wish them all the very best!
Lee Addison is a former club coach at Sea Eagles and Panthers and the founder of rugbyleaguecoach.com.au. He is a Coach Mentor and his programmes for coaches and clubs can be found HERE
