Stuart back with Blues, Harrigan keen to end them
Stuart back with Blues, Harrigan keen to end them
Greg Prichard
November 17, 2010
THE NSWRL will today unveil Ricky Stuart as NSW coach and the NRL is poised to reveal the appointment of Bill Harrigan and Stuart Raper to run the referees in tandem.
Stuart will replace Craig Bellamy, who had three years as NSW coach in State of Origin without winning a series. The deal is expected to be for two years, which is understood to be a compromise following extensive negotiations between NSWRL general manager, Geoff Carr, and Stuart's manager, John Fordham.
Harrigan and Raper are set to replace Robert Finch, who recently resigned as referees' boss. Harrigan and Raper were originally interviewed as individuals by NRL management, along with Greg McCallum and Steve Clark.
The review into Origin operations in NSW, conducted by Brian Canavan, recommended that the next coach be appointed for at least three years, but Stuart is known to be keen to get back into club coaching in the NRL if the right deal comes along.
He would expect to be given a release from the NSW job if he wanted to accept a club offer for 2012 and beyond, and the Herald has learned the NSWRL would look at any such request sympathetically. The trade-off is that the Blues deal has been shortened, protecting the NSWRL from looking silly if its coach wanted to leave after being in the job for just one of three years. Both parties are believed to be happy with that arrangement.
Asked yesterday to confirm Stuart would be named as coach at the 11am media conference the NSWRL has called, Fordham would only say: ''I have been in further contract negotiations with the NSWRL today.''
Stuart is the last man to coach a series-winning Blues side, in 2005.
He began this year as coach of Cronulla, but split with them midway through the season. There are no coaching opportunities available in the NRL for next season, but openings will inevitably come up for 2012.
One of those will be at South Sydney, where John Lang will be the coach next year before finishing up. Stuart has been rumoured to be a contender there, but Rabbitohs chief executive Shane Richardson said yesterday neither Stuart, nor Wayne Bennett, who has also been speculated upon, had been approached by the club.
The appointment to the top job with the referees will represent a huge turnaround in fortunes this year for Harrigan, who was dropped from first grade as a video referee late in the regular season after making a massive blunder in a game between St George Illawarra and Manly. Harrigan awarded a try to Dragons centre Mark Gasnier, whom video replays showed had lost control of the ball before forcing it.
Harrigan, after looking at replays again later, admitted he had made a horrible mistake, and described it as the worst moment in his career. He was subsequently axed by Finch, but was reinstated after just one week out of the video referees' box and ended up in that job for the grand final.
Formerly the game's leading referee, Harrigan has in recent years been Finch's primary assistant. Raper is a former first-grade coach who has also been on Finch's staff in recent years. Neither Harrigan nor Raper returned the Herald's phone calls yesterday.
The NRL has been unhappy about leaks regarding who was being interviewed for the job. Asked yesterday if he could confirm an announcement was imminent, league chief operating officer Graham Annesley would only say: ''The NRL is going through a confidential process, which we have no intention of making any comment about until it has been completed, and it's very disappointing that others are not respecting the process.''
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