A teacher, schemer, dreamer … but Des Hasler definitely isn't paranoid

The Age

a day ago

″All great coaches are paranoid,' a former Sydney Morning Herald editor and fascinated coach-watcher, Sam North, once remarked. Repeat this statement to Gold Coast Titans coach Des Hasler and there is a prolonged pause while he considers the implications of his answer.
He does not want to admit to paranoia and certainly not to greatness, having spent 47 years earning a reputation for humility in a code where big-headedness is a crime. I interrupt the long pause to remind him of his phone call to his great friend and rival football manager, Frank Ponissi, after learning the long-serving Storm official had been appointed to the NRL Pathways Committee around the time Melbourne was gifted a $10 million academy to develop young players.
Hasler incorrectly linked the two, assuming Ponissi had used his position on the committee to win a big NRL grant for his club. Ponissi explained that the $10 million came from the Victorian government to develop pathways, especially for disadvantaged youth in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
Still, Des will not concede he sees agendas everywhere in NRL land, or that he believes passionately in siege mentality. 'Frank and I go back a long way,' he explains, suggesting he was setting his up former Manly coaching colleague while also agitating for the Titans to gain a place on the powerful committee.
'The fact he thinks I am paranoid makes it more delicious. I told him I couldn't understand how a bloke from Melbourne who gets his young players from Queensland could be on an NRL Pathways Committee. I'm pleased my little phone call worked.'
Riiiiiight. But if Hasler was playing an innocent game with an old colleague, he has grounds for paranoia, considering the blurry ethics involved when NRL agents seed stories with journalists in order to engineer moves for their client players and coaches to other clubs. The journo gains the clicks, and agent receives the commission.
For most of this season, Hasler has coached with the proverbial axe above his head, following a story that the Gold Coast board can sack him if the teams fails to make the play-offs. No one I spoke to at the Titans has any knowledge of such a clause in his contract, but such stories can become self-fulfilling prophesies. As defeat builds on debilitating defeat, weak-minded players have a worthy scapegoat other than themselves and it ends in a win for the player manager when his client is appointed to replace the sacked coach.
So, when the Titans came from 24 points down to lead four-times premiers Penrith 26-24 in round 22, only to lose when a Penrith trainer distracted their goal kicker after what should have been a penalty try, surely Des has the makings of a conspiracy theory. Maybe US movie director Oliver Stone could do a film on this. (After all, Des already has a book on him written by Booker Prize winner, Tom Keneally).
But no. For a coach entitled to be nine-tenths empty after such a cruel result, he was positive. 'The upside for me was that it was there for all to see. It showed what we are building. People saw it.' Translation: the savvy board, chaired by old school footballer Dennis Watt, saw what would have been the biggest comeback in the club's history, a confirmation the team is playing for their coach.
Furthermore, it followed a win away against the Warriors in Hasler's 500th game which, in turn, was preceded by televised Leichhardt dressing room scenes where Hasler dragged his players back from the showers for another tongue lashing, presumably because they didn't look sufficiently penitent after losing 21-20 to the Wests Tigers.
Only the lifer coaches, like the Storm's Craig Bellamy, Souths Wayne Bennett and Canberra's Ricky Stuart are willing to risk humbling players. 'New age' coaches believe such sprays are counter-productive, forcing their charges to 'go into a shell'. But it worked. And in any case, the question for all football boards is always: would a replacement coach be any better?
In a long conversation with Hasler, there are dips and detours and abrupt terminals and tributaries in a thoughtful stream of views and, despite the occasional tangle of words, there is deep passion for the game.
He won't buy into the argument today's players are precious, calling their agent following the merest slight. 'I see what they do at training,' he said, explaining that while players are bigger and faster, the laws of physics are constant. 'They are so fast, so much fitter, much leaner, f---ing bigger. You see front rowers running 33km/h and weighing 115kgs collide. The contests are so physical. And the GPS data backs this up. The collisions are frighteningly fast.'
I see the training collisions, too, but I also hear coaches complain about players unwilling to play with a minor twinge, or unwilling to commit in defence. 'I can understand them saying that,' Hasler says, 'but it's more a generational thing. Players today have so much information at their fingertips.' True, players sit in their cubicles post game, poring through their phone messages.
He also sympathises with players regarding their defensive role, particularly with multi-camera coverage of games. 'All responsibility rests with the defensive player. The defensive choices are a lot more demanding today. A ball carrier could be falling and gets a clip on the head and the defensive player is in trouble.' A Herald reader, Hasler points to a recent column where Joey Johns, an Immortal and former halfback, conceded he has finally come round to the view clearing kickers have been given too much protection. Both cite the round 20 match where Storm captain Harry Grant was penalised for brushing the leg of Manly kicker Luke Brooks. Both claim it cost Melbourne the match.
'When a kicker doesn't have any pressure, he can kick the ball 60m to 70m. A team behind can easily be brought back into the game with a good kick and the six-again rule.' Many old footballers believe repeat sets, via tip-offs from the bunker to the referee, balance the scoreboard.
They contend that five years of the six again/penalty convention has normalised the evening out of contests, with fans actually expecting repeat sets to square scores within games and even within series of games.
A high penalty count in Perth evened this year's State of Origin series and there was widespread condemnation of the referee in the second Wallabies versus British and Irish Lions Test for not awarding Australia a penalty which would have set up a decider in Sydney.
Hasler agrees the referee is not accountable for six-agains because they are ruled on the run. However, for a coach accused of being paranoid, he says, 'It's not as if they are used to even up the game. They control the fatigue factor. They control the momentum swings.'
He argues a team needs a good game manager to exploit these oscillations and he has finally found one, switching former fullback Jayden Campbell to halfback. He cites the comeback against the Panthers, saying 'We came up with an unforced error and Penrith had the ball for 27 tackles straight. Once you get the ball back, you need a game manager. You need players who can play instinctively. Jayden Campbell did that. He was a stand-out.' But veteran Latrell Mitchell showed Campbell he still has much to learn in a 20-18 round 23 'Spoon Bowl' loss, when the Rabbitoh centre jolted the ball from his hands, saving a try.
Aged 64, Hasler has the work ethic to shame a sherpa. Chairman Watt counsels me not to call him during a five-day turnaround, citing occasions he has worked through the night. Like other footballaholics, such as Bellamy and Bennett, Hasler shows no signs of slowing up in a career which began in Penrith.
'I started playing in 1980, finished with Tommy [Raudonikis] and Singo [John Singleton] at Wests in 1997. What a fun year that was. Then I started coaching with Manly in 2004 and have been doing it for 21 years.'
In between were two premierships as a player with the Sea Eagles (1987 and 1996) and two as a coach with the club (2008 and 2011). He also took the Bulldogs to two grand finals (2012, 2014) before returning to Brookvale with messy departures at both clubs following legal settlements.
There will be no messy departure from the Gold Cost at the end of this season, with the Titans owners, the Frizelle family saying in a statement: 'Des will be with us in 2026 as his contract states.'
He's surfed every cultural wave, saying of today's generation, 'Connection and vulnerability is paramount with today's age and gender.'
'I'm timber walls and a metal roof. I'm just a battler, a tyre-kicker.'
Des Hasler
The Gold Coast has changed from a 'God's Waiting Room', aged demographic to a region whose schools are bulging. 'It's a developing region with young families moving in, especially since Covid,' Hasler says.
It's similar to Penrith, where it all began for him. Asked if he is still a Fibro, he says, 'I'm timber walls and a metal roof. I'm just a battler, a tyre kicker.' Hmm. He might identify with the same social class, but he has changed tax brackets.
When he arrived at Manly as a player, Noel 'Crusher' Cleal gave him the nickname 'Sorry'. Asked why, Hasler says, 'He reckons I was always saying sorry.' As a Penrith boy, perhaps he was apologetic in the presence of big name players at Brookvale and an Immortal in coach Bob 'Bozo' Fulton.
As a coach, he acquired the nickname the 'nice Bozo', a reference to a kinder side to an identical relentless, ruthless streak. Yet, this ignores the companionship I had with Fulton and plays into rugby league's love of convenient mistruths.
In later years, Hasler is nicknamed 'the Mad Scientist.' He has 'no idea' of its origin, unsure whether he is expected to split the uprights or the atom.
Still, the great inventor, Thomas Edison was dreaming of his 1,094th patent when he died at age 84 and, like Hasler, Edison remained thoroughly modern to his last breath. No one tried to move him on for clickbait and a commission.