Kearney made call to keep McFadden

Andrew McFadden’s future at the Warriors was decided during a secret meeting he had with Stephen Kearney in Brisbane.

McFadden, who’ll become an assistant coach at the club, with Kearney taking the top job next year, opened up on his situation at the Warriors awards event on Tuesday night.

He said that although he agreed with managing director Jim Doyle that it was time for someone else to take over as head coach, that person would make the call on whether he would stay or leave the club.

‘‘We had a couple of honest discussions a couple of weeks ago,’’ McFadden said of himself and Doyle.

‘‘I think we both agreed we needed a change, we needed a new voice and I left that with Jim.

‘‘I knew that would potentially leave me a little vulnerable, for me to stay on another coach had to agree to that. Fortunately Stephen has and I’m very excited to work with him.’’

The disappointing 36-24 loss to the Tigers in the penultimate game of the season went a long way towards sealing McFadden’s fate and the 40-18 defeat to the Eels a week later was the final confirmation.

‘‘I knew I was always under pressure,’’ McFadden said.

‘‘I was never given any ultimatum but I knew we needed to play finals. I’ve had two shots at it previously and I knew I needed to get this done.

‘‘When we lost against the Tigers it was certainly going to be difficult for the club and I thought even personally that it’s probably time.’’

There was another chat between Doyle and McFadden a few days after the Eels loss and following that, Doyle went ahead with negotiations with Kearney.

‘‘I let Jim go after the initial discussions and he told me what was happening,’’ he said.