Brett Kimmorley’s stint NRL coaching at the Wests Tigers has grown his desire to lead

The ex-Australia and NSW halfback has always wanted to be an NRL coach, and that ambition has not changed after a 12-week stint as caretaker for the Wests Tigers went south this year.

He started the job on a hiding to nothing after Michael Maguire was sacked in July.

Kimmorley was pulled up from his role as a pathways manager to lead the NRL team for the last 12 games of the season, where they won one game against Brisbane, lost close ones to Parramatta, Penrith, Newcastle, North Queensland and St George Illawarra but otherwise were hammered and finished with the wooden spoon.

He was shattered, obviously, knowing the club were looking elsewhere for a head coach for 2023. He was essentially a stopgap solution, and having waited years for a chance to take on an NRL job, it ended so miserably.

He was recently named the club’s inaugural NRLW coach for next season, which has given him plenty of work to do, but after the men’s season ended he needed some time away to refresh mentally after a difficult year.

“I certainly did need a few weeks away from the game after I finished coaching, and some time away from the office,” he tells CODE Sports.

“I wasn’t a fan of going anywhere near anyone for a number of weeks.

“I did some media for the semi-finals again, which was different, it was a really good way of watching football where you go into a venue, you call a game and you walk out at full-time not really caring who won or lost. You just get to have a laugh and watch it from a different side of the fence.

“Then I went away with my girls (daughters Maddie, Mia, Ava and Ivy), we got a house down on the south coast for a weekend.

“I just felt like time was up again and I was ready to go back to work. You get over it quickly and get back into it.”

Throughout his professional career as a player behind Immortal Andrew Johns in the representative sides, he dealt with a huge amount of criticism and always got back up again – purely because he loves rugby league and the game is his life. The 46-year-old is still a tough little halfback if there ever was one.

“I’ve seen how this game can break you and how it can give you the highest of highs and it did all of that over those 12 weeks I was coaching the Tigers,” he says.

“I don’t know, I was bashed from pillar to post sometimes in my career as well and you just get back up.”

Still, it was a brutal initiation to the top league. In recent years the cutthroat nature of coaching in the NRL has been firmly in the spotlight as the game’s leading men have such limited time to make an impact on what is an expensive, cutthroat business. The careers of Trent Barrett, Des Hasler, Paul Green and even Anthony Seibold have highlighted the ruthlessness of it all.

“I still love coaching, the number one thing I’ve always wanted to do was coach,” he says.

“I learned so much last year about how difficult it is and what you need to do in order, from the NRL point of view, to be successful.

“I hadn’t been around NRL coaching for probably five or six years before this year, so it’s changed a little bit, but it’s funny, I also think it hasn’t changed at all.

“Sometimes we can over-coach everything and think because we have more time we’ve got to do more things.

“I gave five kids their debut jerseys in the NRL and for themselves and their family it was a very proud moment, that was the highlight of my coaching there.”

His appointment as the club’s NRLW coach, though, is a natural one. As head of pathways and development he worked with the women’s representative sides through Tarsha Gale Cup and the Harvey Norman team before he was pulled up to the NRL squad, with the Tigers then going on to win the NSWRL premiership.

His hopes are that around two-thirds of those players will stay on with the Harvey Norman side for next year, which provides a genuine and healthy pathway through to the NRLW team when that 10-team competition kicks off next season.

“I coached the girls through the year and their ability was enormous and the fun you have with them, it’s a bit different when you jump on a bus and they’re singing on the way to a game and you think, ‘Oh geez, I’m not sure about this preparation’ but they get there and play fine,” he says.

“They enjoy it and they get on so well.

“I think being our first NRLW coach at the club is a pretty special achievement for me, I’d love to see some young players develop here and create a program that someone else can take over after me and go, ‘OK, we’ve created something that the club is investing in’.”

In terms of NRL coaching aspirations, he still has them, but says he learned a lot about what it takes while he was in charge of the Tigers. That experience infused with his 307 NRL game career, five Tests for Australia and 10 games for NSW has given him a lot of knowledge to work with when he turns his hand to the women’s game.

“I’m happy to be patient in coaching aspirations and all of that, you just keep learning and learning and learning and when an opportunity comes it comes,” he says.

“I get to coach a brand new NRLW team and there’ll be a lot of excitement for our girls when that kicks off.

“All of the things I learned as a player I share to the halves or fullbacks and bits and pieces on indicators of play and building pressure and all of that type of stuff, and all of the things I’ve learned as a coach over time, people you liked or didn’t like, styles you thought were good or some you thought were a bit off, you take in all your development.”

“I don’t know if how I do it is right or wrong in what I do, but we had some good success in the NRL and some very bad games and it was very similar in the Harvey Norman competition too.

“I think it’s just a journey of learning and evolving… I love the game, I’m still blessed to be involved in the game 12 years after I retired and I still absolutely love the game as much as I did when I was a 20 year-old-kid.”