You can’t be a great team without a great coach. So, it’s not surprising that all teams in the top four have the best coaches in this year’s competition.
However not all coaches are born equal, so I thought I’d rank the top four coaches in order, how they performed this year and their team’s chance to win the 2024 NRL Premiership.
The rankings are for the 2024 season only, not on their overall coaching record.
Let’s get started…
Craig Bellamy – 9/10
I have great respect for “Bellyache” and how he moulded this team into a genuine Premiership contender. The side only lost five games all year despite some serious injuries to key personal. The Storm are very experienced when it comes to finals football and I don’t expect Bellamy to make any drastic changes to the way his side plays. He may tinker with the game plan depending on the opponent though, but that’s about it. The Storm deserve outright favouritism for the 2024 Premiership as they’ve been the best side all season. Premiership ranking: A+
Ivan Cleary – 8/10
It was a great coaching performance by Ivan Cleary this year considering his son and halfback Nathan Cleary only played 10 first grade games. There were other key players injured throughout the season and this, plus the release of Taylan May, made for a very disrupted year. Still, it did give coach Cleary the chance to blood some promising young players like Casey McLean, Luron Patea and Trent Toelau. Now while Penrith weren’t as dominant in 2024 as in past seasons, they still finished with the number one defence in the league, while Ivan Cleary, well he guided the Panthers into their fifth straight Preliminary Final. Premiership ranking: A
Trent Robinson – 7.5/10
Despite rarely giving credit to the opposition, Trent Robinson had a great year coaching his side to third place at the end of the regular season. Robinson had the Chooks humming at one point and looking every bit a premiership contender. The attacking brand of football played by the Roosters was sensational. They may not have the best defence but they don’t have to because they blitzed every other team in attack, scoring a phenomenal 738 points. If Robinson can navigate his troops, minus halfback Sam Walker and hooker Brandon Smith to a premiership in 2024, it could well become his greatest coaching achievement ever. Premiership ranking: B
Craig Fitzgibbon – 7/10
Fitzgibbon is the least experienced coach of the four remaining in the competition, but he still deserves plenty of credit. In only his third full year with the first-grade whistle, he guided the Sharks to a top four finish. He also broke his ‘no finals win hoodoo’ with a victory over the Cowboys last weekend. Fitzy has also had his fair share of coaching dramas in 2024 with key players injured and halfback Nicho Hynes suffering a crisis of confidence. The Sharks are at long-odds to defeat the Panthers this Saturday night and book an unlikely Grand Final appearance, but if anyone can inspire such an upset, Fitzgibbon and his team of Sharks can. Premiership ranking: C+
My tip for the 2024 Premiership decider: Penrith v Melbourne.
The two best teams – and coaches – all year deserve to be there!
Peter Lang
Peter Lang is an experienced sports writer, who has been covering rugby league for several decades. He first wrote Lang on League for the Weekender in the 1990s, and worked for Panthers on its famous Panthers Magazine for several years.