BROWN GONE AS FITZY IN FRAME
IN any mutual parting of the ways there is always one party that believes it to be more mutual than the other. It’s not you, it’s me …
Just three weeks ago Newcastle coach Nathan Brown walked on to the training field at Newcastle and had a quick word with Jesse Ramien.
“I hear your dad is shopping you around?” he said to Ramien. “I don’t take that personally, and don’t take this personally, but go and pack your bags and go and play somewhere else where you’re happy with the money you’re on.”
Yesterday it was Brown’s turn.
Knights management believed Brown had improved them as much as he could. Or was ever going to, which is different but more fatal.
The Knights have been quietly looking for a coach for a small time now. Brown got a sense of it last week when he met Knights boss Phil Gardner shortly after he returned from overseas.
Last Thursday Brown’s manager George Mimis was told the Knights were looking for a new coach. Brown heard on Friday.
He failed to let that discourage him and on Saturday afternoon the Knights were giving North Queensland a hiding and Brown appeared completely unaffected.
By Monday, though, Brown had had time to digest the mood and that night he spoke to Gardner again and told him that, without his full support, he would walk away at the end of the season.
It was confirmation of the problems underneath at Newcastle.
The Knights were having an unusual season. After winning their opening game they lost their next five, then won their next five. They swapped a few wins and losses then lost their next six.
Something more than form seemed to be affecting the team. Then Brown was on NRL360 last week explaining the unusual streaks, saying given his time again there would have been a couple of coaching decisions he would have changed.
It was an unusual admission. The last thing a coach should admit is uncertainty. It makes players nervous.
How culpable the playing group remains in Brown’s mutual departure will come out over time. It was significant.
With each hour yesterday news emerged that many of the senior players felt their improvement under Brown, to be polite, had peaked.
It also began to emerge there was a push for Roosters assistant Craig Fitzgibbon. As unlikely as this appears, it was not without precedent.
There was a similar coup at the Roosters in 2012 when Brian Smith was sacked with a season to go and Trent Robinson was appointed.
Robinson, then coaching in France, was such an outsider he was not even considered a contender in early markets to be the Roosters new coach but there was a strong push from the playing group for Robinson.
A similar internal push is now being made for Fitzgibbon, considered one of the bright new lights in coaching.