A sub-par 2023 NRL season looks set to force the Sydney Roosters into a major coaching reshuffle for next year.
Although Trent Robinson is safe for at least another season, the role of halves coach Cooper Cronk is under the microscope, which could see him forced out of the club.
With five rounds left, the Roosters are facing their worst season since 2016 when they finished 15th.
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Speaking on Nine’s 100% Footy on Monday night, Danny Weidler said proof of Cronk’s sub-par work with the halves group was in the pudding.
“He works with the likes of Sam Walker, Luke Keary and Joey Manu, and there’s some chance they’ll re-evaluate his role,” Weidler said.
“Not everyone in the club is entirely happy with Cronk’s role – I guess the proof is in the pudding.
“We haven’t seen Sam Walker fire a lot this year – he was dumped at one point. We didn’t see Joey Manu succeed either. How much of that is Cooper Cronk’s fault I don’t know.
“But … they’re examining that situation as well. It doesn’t mean he’s gone from the club, but it’s one I guess we can watch with interest.”
Meanwhile, Weidler said the club was buttering Jake Friend, currently filling the assistant hole left by the sacking of Jason Ryles before his return to Melbourne next season, to take the role on permanently.
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However, in order to take on the role, club bosses said he would need to close the successful plumbing business he’s been running since his premature retirement in 2021.
However, the Roosters might be looking in the wrong place, according to Phil Gould, who said the practice of NRL clubs hiring ex-players as assistant coaches before they go and coach a lower level team themselves is one that needs to stop.
“I have this feeling that if people are coaching in the NRL, they have to have coached their own team at some stage coming through the system,” he said on 100% Footy.
“I’m not so sure the players retiring to become assistant coaches actually learn to be coaches and can help the head coach as much as they would like.
“Head coaches, some rely very heavily on their staff. Some are a little bit more autonomous and do enough of the work themselves.
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“I just don’t know that going straight out of playing into an assistant coach role (under) the head coach of a club is actually going to develop you as a coach or give you an understanding of what coaching really is.
“A lot of that is happening, and then other clubs are appointing those assistant coaches as head coaches.
“What I’ve always tried to do is have people that have recognised they wanted to be coaches, and had the acumen for it, the knowledge, but also the communication skills to coach their own team.
“Coach lower grade and junior rep teams. Even some A-grade sides coming through the system. It’s important you do your groundwork and your education.
“To do your apprenticeship as a coach as an assistant coach (is) very different. I don’t know if you get the grounding you need.”
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Gould said recently-sacked ex-Titans coach Justin Holbrook would be a much better option as an assistant than Friend.
Holbrook is also friends with Robinson, and it has been reported that the pair have had face-to-face meetings.
“He’s coached a number of teams. He coached junior rep teams … he went over to England and coached teams across there,” he said.
Gould said he believed former players who do their coaching apprenticeship in lower grades before coming back have a better understanding of “what it takes to deal with a group of people of all ages and all stages of their career, and (how) to support a head coach”.
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