Former South Sydney Rabbitohs and Brisbane Broncos coach Anthony Seibold has revealed he regrets leaving the Redfern-based club and that he was left embarrassed by his stint in the south east corner of Queensland.
Seibold was a breakout coach during his time at the Rabbitohs, making his debut in the 2018 season before guiding the team to a preliminary final.
Having served an apprenticeship under Craig Bellamy at the Storm, at the Manly Sea Eagles and as part of the Queensland State of Origin setup, the competition looked to have found a new super coach.
Seibold was named Dally M Coach of the Year for 2018, however, a messy off-season switch with Wayne Bennett saw him land at the Broncos, with things going south from there.
2019 saw Brisbane make the finals before they were bombed out to the tune of 58-0 in the opening week by the Parramatta Eels, before Seibold coached the Broncos to the bottom of the table in 2020, being sacked shortly before the end of the season.
Brisbane went on to win the wooden spoon, and Seibold told Fox Sports that he regrets leaving the Rabbitohs, having made a business decision.
“I was challenged and struggled because I was embarrassed by failing up there,” Seibold told the publication.
“There’s so many things that went down that I look back on and reflect on.
“I regret leaving South Sydney.
“I made a business decision. I didn’t make a decision with my heart, I made a decision with my head and it went pear shaped.
“There’s a lot of reasons for that, but I’ve got to hold my hand up because, ultimately, I’m the main reason it went pear shaped.
“I regret some things about leaving South Sydney, I would do some things differently.
“I would do some things differently, I would do some things the same at the Broncos.”
The formerly highly regarded coach left the Broncos with the worst winning ratio of any coach who has spent time in charge of the glamour club, following a playing career which saw him represent the Canberra Raiders, London Broncos and Hull Kingston Rovers at the top of the game in both Australia and England.
Seibold is now back in England, serving as a defence coach for the national rugby union team under head coach Eddie Jones, who was once linked with a sensational swap to NRL and could reportedly still be interested in a swap in the future.
Jones has served as head coach of Australia, Japan and England in the 15-man game, and Seibold said his relationship with Jones stems back to the 2016 England tour of Australia, when the pair met.
“We had about three or four hours together, did a lot of shared learning, so it was right at the beginning of the pre-season at Souths, so I sort of shared what I was trying to do to improve the club,” Seibold said.
“We had finished 12th two years in a row, so we changed up the way we were preparing and the way we wanted to play our footy.
“And Eddie loves league, he loves to see what he can take back from league to rugby union.
“From that long conversation we always stayed in touch and obviously we had a great deal of success that year at South Sydney, so Eddie was continually reaching out and asking ‘What did you do here? What are you seeing there?’
“We went from a team that finished 11th for points scored in the comp to the team that scored the most points, we were in the top four defensively that year as well, so we were doing a lot of things right and Eddie was looking at what we were doing.”
