How Hodgson appointment’s been a decade in the making
THE INSIDE TRACK ON HULL’S NEW HEAD COACH - BY THOSE WHO KNOW HIM BEST
There’s been nothing lucky about Brett Hodgson’s career as a coach. Hard work and dedication has characterised the new Hull FC chief’s rise through the ranks, with a constant drive to succeed being made apparent to everyone he has crossed paths with in the sport.
It’s a journey that has taken him from his first permanent coaching role with the Widnes Vikings academy shortly after he retired playing to the KCOM Stadium where he is now the head coach and looking forward to 2021 optimistically, with a large spell learning from the best in the game in Australia wedged in between.
The appointment of Hodgson may have come from left field, but for those who know him it was no surprise.
The former Huddersfield Giants and Warrington Wolves full-back has been building towards this opportunity for some time and he’s ready to grasp it with both hands and take the next step.
Of course, Hodgson was a perennial winner as a player. He won a NRL Grand Final with Wests
Tigers and represented New South Wales in the State of Origin, which is the pinnacle a player can reach domestically.
That was before he made the decision to move to Huddersfield Giants in 2009. He went on to win the Super League Man of Steel award in his first season and it’s fair to he made an impression at the John Smith’s Stadium, but it didn’t come without its challenges.
“I remember him coming over, it was absolutely freezing cold and he couldn’t breathe,” Eorl Crabtree, Hodgson’s former Giants team-mate, told the Mail. “He wasn’t used to the cold air and his chest was tight! We were all laughing going ‘welcome to England!’. He just adapted and he rolled with it.
“He could do things at full-back that I’ve never seen other players do in terms of his timing, awareness and the way he could get out of trouble.
“He was built like Monty Burns from The Simpsons, he was one of those that by looking at him, his body and his physical stature, should never have been as good as he was - it was his brain that got him to where he was and through the battles, he always made the right decisions.
“I’ve never, ever been alongside a player that read the game quite like him.”
Hodgson was still only 30 when he made the move to the Super League, but it was apparent he had a long career ahead of him as a coach.
“He’s a natural leader and somebody who creates things himself but we’d work around what he wanted to do,” Crabtree added.
“It was almost like he was a coach when he was playing with you. He knew how to lead the team and what he wanted from his team. You never saw him just as a player, he was always a senior player that helped out with the coaching. He was always going to go into something like that.”
Naturally then, it was something he pursued after his playing career came to an end in 2013, after three seasons with Warrington Wolves, where yet again he found success by adding a Challenge Cup winners medal and a Lance Todd Trophy to his impressive haul of accolades. He had a spell working as a consultant at Hull, where he mentored up and coming full-back Jamie Shaul and he worked with the club’s kickers, but it was at Widnes where he got his first chance as a coach.
“First and foremost, I’ve never had anyone work for me that’s not a great human being and Brett passed that test quite convincingly,” Denis Betts told the Mail. “He knew a couple of players and he came highly recommended.
“He worked as an intern at the start of it all, coming in a couple of days a week and doing a bit of this and that, some backfield stuff, working with the full-backs and mentoring a couple of players, so I got a feel for him before I offered him the job but he was a very good coach.
“Very driven and wanted to get better and also the position he played, he knew how the game looked and he knew where people were meant to be.
“He had a good understanding of how to set up a team and how to manipulate people from where he spent most of his career.”
Of course, Hodgson left the Vikings to join Wests Tigers in 2017 to work under Ivan Cleary and later Michael Maguire and the 42-year-old spoke about taking bits from both coaches in his first press conference with the club.
However, he also spoke about partaking in extracurricular activity in his spare time with England rugby union boss Eddie Jones and with the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City and Everton.
It’s that drive to improve himself that sets him out from the rest for Betts.
“He carries a depth of understanding of the game and he has a desire to get better,” he added.
“He’s a bit of a sponge, he doesn’t mind travelling to listen to coaches, he doesn’t mind watching stuff and he wants to work hard and understand his craft. He’s really diligent.
“He’s always about what’s out there and what he needs to see. Some of it won’t help you but you need to know you’re on the right path and what other people are thinking in those head coach environments.
“Brett’s always done that, he’s always put himself in that environment to get better. That won’t change where he is now.
“He wants to get better and he has a real understanding of what’s expected of him because he played so long in this country, he knows the
Hull job is a big job and after the Challenge Cup successes and the investment from Adam Pearson, you know they’re pushing for Grand Finals and big-time play-off games.”
Hodgson will be backed by the club’s hierarchy and he’ll be able to add to his squad of players with a couple more names and faces to give him the best chance of succeeding at the KCOM and meeting the demands and expectations of a passionate fanbase.
Having spent time with him, though, Crabtree has every faith Hodgson will carry the success from his playing career into his coaching one.
“It could be shrewd business by Hull getting him early in his coaching career,” the former Giants prop added. “I think that’s exciting getting him early in his coaching career. I think it’s exciting for everybody, it’s come out of the blue, he’s been working towards this and he will have been doing his work on the team while not worrying about people putting pressure on him. The pressure will come though and that will be different from what he’s used to.
“He’s been under pressure as a player with bombs on his own line, he knows what it’s like to be at the back on your own and to have people running you down trying to nail you.
“He’s been swung into touch by Gorden Tallis. He’s done it all, the pressure he will feel will be different but he’s been coaching for a while now, this is his opportunity to stand up and make it.
“I think it’s a brave decision but I think it could be a masterstroke because he has got everything you could possibly want from a coach because of what he’s already done in the game, I think it’s a fantastic choice.”