To most outside of the inner sanctum at Canterbury in mid-2020, it looked like the job of rebuilding a battered Bulldogs team was beyond the scope of Trent Barrett. To the powerbrokers of the time though, the Kool-Aid had been drunk, and there was a panic to sign the former Manly coach who, rightly or wrongly, was being credited with the improvement in Penrith’s attack. With complete disregard for the concept of rigorous process, Barrett was announced as the Canterbury coach for 2021 and beyond just nine days after Dean Pay quit.
CEO at the time Andrew Hill said: “We have acted swiftly to secure the services of Trent because we believe he is the right man to take our club forward”. The “we” involved have been proved wrong, and the repercussions of that decision have been a club slipping ever-deeper into the mire, no closer to returning to finals football than they were two years ago when Pay battled away with a horrid roster and a worse salary cap situation.
Two years have been wasted, unnecessarily so. Barrett’s stint at Manly was, to say the least, underwhelming. The Sea Eagles finished bottom four in two of three seasons, both years with the Trbojevic brothers and Daly Cherry-Evans among others.
Yet his 29-44 record at Manly is relatively positive, compared to his 5-29 since taking over at the Bulldogs. In his only full season, Barrett’s Bulldogs captured the wooden spoon. He leaves the club in last place. Considered an attacking mastermind, Barrett’s Bulldogs finished last in scoring in 2021, managing 106 fewer points than the second worst attacking team. This year the Bulldogs are scoring a horrific 9.6 points per match, not surpassing 16 once, despite a spending spree that has brought in backs Josh Addo-Carr, Matt Burton, Matt Dufty and Brent Naden, among others.
Such underperformance considering the outlay made over the offseason is remarkable, as are some other decisions he has made. Barrett persisted with reforming outside back Jake Averillo into a halfback, well beyond the time failure became inevitable. His refusal to give time to Kyle Flanagan at halfback in the pre-season as a pairing with Burton lacked sense. Selection favourites like Jayden Okunbor and Corey Waddell have hardly helped his cause.
The Bulldogs are not a club prone to axing coaches. Most get time. No non-interim coach has lasted less than two years since captain-coach Roger Pearman in 1966. Of course, no coach since Tedda Courtney in Canterbury’s inaugural season managed a worse strike rate than Barrett’s 15.2%.
Rugby league is a results-based business and even a club that has fallen into such disrepair as Canterbury could not tolerate such returns. The shock is not that Barrett was forced out but that he has survived this long.
Barrett’s inglorious stint – arguably the worst period Canterbury has endured under any coach since that infamous first season where the Bulldogs conceded the two highest scores in premiership history – is a lesson to not get suckered by shiny things.
The focus now, naturally, turns to the future and where to next for the Bulldogs. This will include not only the next coach charged with starting the latest rebuild but a thorough examination of the power dynamics at the club.
The first port of call has to be Phil Gould and his future with the Bulldogs. Less than two weeks ago he stated that Barrett “will be the coach of the Bulldogs long after I’m gone”. Gould – who has been fashioned as more powerful than both the CEO and the chairman – said publicly on Monday that he “wasn’t going to sack” Barrett and that it was “Trent’s decision”. But given how the situation has played out at Belmore, questions over the role Gould plays going forward should be asked.
His ability to identify coaching talent is also worrisome, considering he pushed for Barrett to get both the Manly and Canterbury jobs, highly recommended Gold Coast sign Penrith assistant Garth Brennan and dismissed eventual premiership-winning coach Ivan Cleary from Penrith.
There is little doubting the importance of an astute football club manager. Ben Ikin has worked wonders at Brisbane this year since joining the club and Frank Ponissi has been a central figure in the Storm dynasty. Their lack of public posturing or attempt to influence traditional areas of coaching makes them a different proposition to Gould.
When identifying a coach, it is apparent the Bulldogs need an experienced mentor who has enjoyed recent success. The resume has to be bulletproof. The candidate needs to be able to handle the rigours of the week-in and week-out fire of the NRL. The club needs a coach who can reform an attack, lift standards particularly around fitness and football intelligence and develop a style of football that can both succeed and win players over. The coach needs to be a strong recruiter who can attract quality players.
This narrows the field to Paul Green and Shane Flanagan with Kristian Woolf also in the mix with such a strong Super League, international and lower-grade resume. Green and Flanagan are both hard-nosed coaches who have won premierships in the last decade. The concern with either though is their willingness to coach under such a hands-on football manager like Gould.
The Bulldogs have made a decision that had to be made. But the hard part comes now, with constructing a sustainable future. It remains to be seen if the right people are in place though to make the right calls.