Matty Johns has revealed his two leading candidates for the vacant head coach position at the Newcastle Knights and the one “left of centre” option which even he concedes is a “big risk”.
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Adam O’Brien fronted the media on Thursday to confirm a “mutual separation” from the club at season’s close despite being contracted to the Knights until the end of 2028.
News of O’Brien’s looming departure was quickly followed by speculation as to who could take over, with attacking coach Blake Green looming as the likely replacement while Justin Holbrook, Willie Peters and Brad Arthur have also been floated as options.
Johns singled out Holbrook and Peters as the two he would “look at” while also offering up a left-field alternative that he thinks is “worth a chat”.
“I think Willie Peters has done an incredible job over at Hull Kingston Rovers,” the former premiership-winning Knights five-eighth said on ‘The Late Show with Matty Johns’.
“Whether he wants to come back or not, I’m not sure. He’s got experience over there. He’s built that side. He’s been an assistant at Newcastle, he knows the town.
“The other one is Justin Holbrook. Justin had a lot of success at St Helens, won a title over there, had a win rate at 80 per cent and when you look back sometimes you’re in a better position to judge a job that a coach does in hindsight and when you look at what he was doing at the Titans you actually realise he was doing a good job.
“I’ll tell you the other bloke I would interview if I was the Newcastle Knights: Michael Cheika. I would do it. He’s always harboured an ambition to coach in rugby league.
“One thing about Michael Cheika, these days you’ve always got really good assistants around you and I think more than Xs and Os, in the modern age what defines coaches is the ability to handle pressure and he’s proven he’s a great man manager and one thing he can do is handle pressure. I think he’d be worth a chat.”
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When Bryan Fletcher posited that appointing Cheika as head coach would be a “big risk”, Johns agreed “without a doubt” that it wouldn’t be the safest choice.
But he pointed to the success of Englishman Malcom Reilly, who coached Newcastle to its maiden premiership in 1997, as proof that thinking outside the square sometimes is what is needed.
“When Malcolm Reilly came to the club, he was Great Britain coach and we look back now and (think) how good he was, he was fantastic,” Johns said.
“But at the time when he was signed everyone went, ‘Geez, that’s left of centre. You’re bringing a Pom out here to coach, how is that going to go?’. The way we played was a complete point of difference to everybody else.”
The Knights face the Sharks on Sunday afternoon before closing out their season against Parramatta.
