First of all Steve, commiserations on your Newcastle Knights team’s loss to the Warriors in the Harold Matthews Cup grand final – but you must be pleased as head coach with how the campaign went?
The team has done really well, trained really hard through the pre-season and into the season, and they just got better and better week on week – they really connected as a group as well. We have good staff there and I really enjoyed my first time head coaching at that level. Obviously we didn’t get the result we were after on Saturday, there’s plenty of moments in that game that didn’t go our way but the Warriors were just too good on the day, mate. We gave them too many opportunities down our end of the field and they’re obviously big, powerful kids. We had our moments and there’s patches there where we played really good.
Can you see yourself carrying on coaching either in Harold Matts, or further up the grades – is that something you’re setting your sights on?
Look, I do love it. I really enjoy it. It’s a tough one to juggle work commitments and coaching at that level, but if the right opportunity came up, it’s definitely something I’d look at.
You’re Operations Manager at KRH Mining Maintenance – is this an industry you got straight into post-playing?
I met the company owner probably four years ago and I’ve always been in the mining sector post-footy. [This was] an opportunity to manage people and it’s something that footy sets you up for – you deal with so many different people and sponsors, and you’ve got to engage with people at a professional level in rugby league. I think that’s helped me out heaps with this managing role at KRH.
Business and footy, especially at that highest level, really cross over in so many areas. It’s all about treating people with respect and being truthful, too. You’ve got to have some tough conversations on the footy field and as part of an elite team, and you’ve got to do the same in business.
Looking back your career, being born in Maitland and a Singleton junior, what did it mean to you to come through the ranks with Newcastle Knights and debut in 1999 when you were still a teenager?
Obviously I’m from the area and it’s my home club – I really enjoyed my time at Newcastle. It’s a lot different to any other club in the NRL I reckon, the core values of the place. You’ve only got so many years to do it before your body wears out, but we had good success there and to achieve other personal goals off the back of playing at that club, it’s really good stuff to be involved with for sure.
It was Warren Ryan that gave you your debut, playing in a tough, experienced Knights pack. It must have been an ideal introduction to the big time for a young player?
Yeah, [Ryan] was brilliant. He’s a bit old school with his people skills, ‘Wok’, and that’s fine, I had no issue there. My old man’s a bit the same … very old school. But his attention to detail was great and he rewarded effort, so I trained my backside off straight out of [under-19s] to try and catch Billy Peden, who was our fittest forward – I could never catch him, but I got fairly close to him with our fitness stuff. Warren gave me a go and I’m very grateful for that. I learned so much from him that first couple of years into my NRL career and he got me in good habits. Off the back of that, ‘Hages’ (Michael Hagan) took over the team in 2001 and I truly think that Warren set us up to win the competition that year.
Not too many people give Warren Ryan a great deal credit for what you guys did in 2001, so that’s interesting to hear. You played every game in 2001 and scored a try in that grand final ambush of Parramatta. What a ride it must have been, especially when you were such big underdogs in the grand final and just blew them off the park?
Personally for me, Warren helped me so much. I didn’t realise it until he’d left how much he’d helped me, because I was only a 19- and 20-year-old kid when he was there. He got me in good habits and I learned a lot about getting good reps in, rather than just getting reps – you’ve got to get that detail into your reps and that’s really helped me as a coach, I reckon. In 2001, ‘Hages’ gave me a starting spot and really backed me as a player. I grew in confidence that year.
My first three or four years I didn’t miss any footy at all, I had a really good run with backing sessions up and not missing any footy due to injury. So I was really lucky there, that helps you so much when you’re a young kid coming into a squad and you can actually back sessions up and back games up. That’s the way you really go ahead with your game and get confidence and get after it.
I was really lucky there to have a good run at the right time and just to establish myself as a player. But we had a cracking squad too: really competitive, really tightknit team and obviously we got the job done in 2001. It was a real privilege to play in that side, we knew that if we were on we’d beat any team on our day – if we played our best footy no team would get near us.
Representative honours came quickly on the back of that, breaking into the NSW and Australian teams in 2022 while still only 22 years old – and alongside so many of your Newcastle teammates as well: Andrew Johns, Danny Buderus, Timana Tahu, Matt Gidley…
It was a bit of a pinch yourself moment to receive those phone calls to let you know you’re in. I certainly dreamed about wanting to do it as a kid, but I probably never thought I was going to get the opportunity. Then they’re pretty nice phone calls to make to your parents to let them know that you’ve been selected in those squads. Obviously you’ve got to be playing the right footy yourself personally, but if you’re in a winning team it helps you to get selected. My teammates were working so hard for each other.
It’s a Kangaroo Tour year for the first time since 2003, which you were a part of – playing all three Tests in an unforgettable cleansweep in England. What memories stick out most from that incredible series?
It was so much fun. It’s a long season our NRL players go through and a Test series on the back end draws it out further, but it’s such a great experience and it’s a real privilege to be part of it. We were really tightknit squad over there in 2003. All three Tests came down to the last few minutes of play to get a result. With the English crowds it’s such a great atmosphere – they’re singing, chanting. To play in front of those crowds over there was such a great experience and something I’ll never forget. It’s been a long time between drinks and it’s nice to see it back.
Injuries started to take the toll on your career and you retired at 30, which is reasonably young by modern standards. How did you handle that decision mentally and that transition into retirement?
It was really tough, actually. I thought I might have played another year or two, to be fair. I thought I was still playing pretty good footy, but I was really struggling to get to the games each week. I remember that last year I played (2010), I felt fine to start with and I was managing my run load really well, only running two days a week for an hour each time. I had a knee injury, which I needed anti-inflammatories to run with and I’d been carrying it for about four years.
I just started to get other injuries off the back of that, hamstrings, and it took a lot of managing. I was just constantly sore and I didn’t want to finish being a passenger – I wanted to finish playing well. I also wanted a decent quality of life as well, not getting a knee replacement at 35. So it was tough decision to make, but it was the right decision at the time.
I didn’t have anything set up really [for post-footy] – I had a few leads, but it was a bit of a shock at the time. I was a bit lost for a while, actually, for the first sort of six months or so. You go from the routine around that team environment. It’s really tough spending 14 years doing the same thing, in that environment, and it just stops.
You’re a one-club player, still involved with the club and the Newcastle rugby league community clearly means a lot to you. Being inducted as a Knights Hall of Fame member in 2022 must have been an incredibly proud moment?
I suppose I wasn’t really expecting it to be fair. [There’s only 11] players and coaches in that group, so to be among some of those people is really special and something I really value. I had opportunities to go elsewhere at times and I probably would like to have gone to England for a year or two – circumstances didn’t quite work out for me there, but I’m really proud to be a one-club player and to be part of [the Hall of Fame].
