Angry Anderson with a softer side
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday October 3, 2009
A former schoolteacher who never played in the top grade, Daniel Anderson is an NRL coach with a difference, writes Andrew Stevenson. Daniel Anderson has always been a contrary type. In footballing terms, the west came of age at the same time he did, Parramatta winning their first title in 1981, the year Anderson the eldest of five kids from Winston Hills turned 14.Grothe, Sterling, Price and Cronin might have been the heroes of Parramatta but Anderson was still wearing his Roosters jumper, flying the old tri-colours. The west had learnt to win without him, and this Sunday, 23 years after their last premiership, the Eels are desperate to return to their days of glory with Anderson their ace off the pitch.A career coach with a difference, Anderson is the only NRL coach not to have played top-flight rugby league. That hes reached the top at such a young age hes 42 and coached in his first NRL grand final at 35 only confirms his talent.But it remains a talent at least as explosive as his young and unpredictable ball-runner. One day he comes in and hes smiling; the other day he comes in red and hes spitting and hes angry, said winger Eric Grothe, who first played under Anderson as a teenager.If hes drinking a Red Bull, I know were in trouble, and if hes had a Valium, I know were going to be all right. I dont know, if he has both, I guess he might just be normal.Once he was going to be normal. A normal Catholic schoolteacher. Or so Anderson says. Better than normal, in fact. Not much to it, Im boring, he says. After high school at Parramatta Marist Brothers he studied teaching, and would have you believe his first job, at St Gregorys College, Campbelltown only the most celebrated rugby league school in the NSW had nothing to do with where he is now.He just knew someone, he says. The bloke who employed me was my old maths teacher, Brother David [Hayes] hes the one who wanted me there, he said. Good fortune that it was a rugby league school but it wasnt because of footy that I went there.Which is not how Peter Mulholland, then running the St Gregs football program and now recruitment manager at the Bulldogs, recalls things. We purposely went out and got four or five good young coaches, he says.He was very conscientious. He wanted to learn all the time and he soaked it up. But he was a lazy, fat thing the old Do as I say, not as I do. Thats the schoolteacher in him.Anderson still keeps something of the manner of the matey teacher about him, always up for a laugh with his charges but able to dish out the stinging rebuke when needed.Tactically, hes pretty strong but his strength is the way he handles players, says Nathan Hindmarsh, who also played under Anderson as a teenager. He still likes a bit of a laugh but when it comes to training seriously, hell bite your head off.The fact is Anderson will chip anyone. Last month an old schoolmate, Mark Donkin, was jogging in Parramatta when Anderson slowed down, wound down his window and gave him a serve.Hes a real Parramatta bloke. He grew up in Winston Hills in a red brick place, and his family did it pretty tough, Donkin says.Coaching has brought financial comfort, but the heart brought Anderson home from England where he coached St Helens to three successive Challenge Cup victories and notched one Super League grand final win from three starts straight back into the same streets he trod as a kid.But this is a different Daniel Anderson, says Donkin who also gave him his first job as a development officer at Parramatta. At the Eels, he rose through the ranks to become Brian Smiths assistant before joining the Warriors at the behest of another influential school friend, Mick Watson, who was chief executive of the New Zealand franchise.Anderson could do no wrong, taking them to their first finals in his first year and then a grand final in 2002, only for him to lose his players and then his job in 2004. Donkin says bluntly his friend had become almost too cool for school.That was a massive turning point for him because I think he realised there that there was a bit of an ego he had started to gather. I remember a conversation where he said that taught him a real massive lesson, he said.If his demise brought Anderson back to earth, his spell at St Helens had him walking among the mortals with the certain knowledge of his abilities.The Warriors loss is in perspective. Ive lost plenty of grand finals, Anderson says. He wont say what he learnt from the loss but is confident hes much better at his job. Im a better coach because Ive been in England. Ive been in three Challenge Cups and three grand finals. Ive had six weeks like this where its a daunting, pressure-cooker situation a knock-out game and theres plenty on the line, he says.On Monday, Anderson chatted, loose and relaxed, at the start of another such week. As relaxed as he appeared, the screws were already starting to tighten within. Brian Smith, as intense as anyone in the game, says Anderson is among the most intense people Ive ever met about footy.Hes also one for the mind, digging into the skull of a young footballer to produce the optimum performance. The nerves will come, the intensity is already there. The last challenge is to channel the right mix of the two Red Bull and Valium into the Eels dressing room come 5.10pm tomorrow for Anderson to come of age as an NRL coach.
Β© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
