IF there was a Pandora’s box NRL coaches wanted to tape shut and bury in a big hole under ANZ Stadium, this was it.

Dragons’ Director of Rugby League Pathways Ian Millward has revealed his club has unashamedly moved towards an NFL-style model that makes the coach more dispensable.

According to Ben Ikin, it’s a path that other clubs are wisely following.

For years NFL clubs have had a football department structure that puts a ‘General Manager’ at the top of the decision making chain when it comes to recruitment, retention and the philosophy that underpins it.

Round 19

The coach is hired to manage the day-to-day operations of the team and lives and dies by its results.

While the NRL has long been a cold, hard business for coaches, rarely has it been as cutthroat as it is in America.

Ben Ikin, Nathan Ryan and Ben Glover are joined by Dragons recruitment boss Ian Millward to discuss the club’s recruitment plan and why it revolves around Ben Hunt.

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That’s changing, with all-powerful coaches like Des Hasler and Wayne Bennett, who have their fingerprints all over the football department, becoming an endangered species.

That’s smart, says Ikin, because in theory it should make it much quicker to rebuild and compete after taking the hard decision to sack the coach.

“It’s not something NRL coaches want to see happening because it makes it easier to move them on,” Ikin told the Market Watch podcast.

Paul McGregor addresses his troops. Source: News Corp Australia

“Whereas if a coach comes in and says ‘no, I’m the boss of everything in this department’, it means he’s got his fingerprints on everything, which makes it harder for him to be extricated.

“That can create a tumultuous journey for the football club because if the coach doesn’t perform in the NRL, everything else he’s been involved in has to be changed when you get a new coach in, because the new coach will want to do things his own way.

“The Dragons have now got a football advisory board, which means they’re going to be making the decisions, together with a whole bunch of other senior staff, around 80 per cent of what goes on in the football department.

“It’s a smart play by the Red V. This is the coaches’ new reality.”

At the Dragons, the “new reality” was brought into sharp focus when coach Paul McGregor was moved off recruitment and retention, relieving him of the Rubik’s cube that is modern roster management.

Part of that change was the increasing responsibility in Millward’s role, with a blueprint for Dragons teams of the future his to create.

His focus? A philosophy aimed at fostering the youth brought through one of the strongest catchment areas in the competition.

It’s eerily similar to what Phil Gould’s doing with Penrith.

“You’ve got to liaise with your coach but you’ve also got to have a philosophy at the club where we want to be a development club,” Millward said.

“I think the coach needs to focus on coaching, he also needs to have some trust in the people he works with.

“ ... And look, it gives you some consistency as a club. It gives you a real focus.

“But we’ve got a really great catchment area and it also gives belief to people who are playing juniors and are in our area that they can be available if an opportunity’s available for the team they want to play for and hopefully that’s the Dragons.”

Millward said it was this philosophy that led to the recent re-signings of promising local juniors Jacob Host, Luciano Leilua, Hame Sele, Matt Dufty, Jai Field and Pat Herbert.

He also predicted bright futures at the club for teenage hooker Reece Robson and winger Reuben Garrick.

While Millward has intentionally staked the Dragons’ future on the club’s junior base he said there would always be a place for big name recruits to fill the gaps.

He was unapologetic for making Ben Hunt the NRL’s most recent million dollar man and made it clear that while McGregor no longer makes the final call on the players he coaches, he was still an important part of the process.

“Let’s not lose sight of the fact we wouldn’t go and sign someone behind Paul’s back and I think the worst thing in life is surprises, so there’s interaction all the time,” Millward said.

That is until McGregor is no longer part of the picture at all, if and when he falls victim to the coaches’ “new reality”.

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