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Steve Folkes is back on the market in a big way, writes Will Swanton.
'I want to make it right," Steve Folkes said on his return from a stint as the strength and conditioning coach of the West Indies cricket team.
The former Bulldogs, NSW and Test player, whose highly successful 11-year reign as the Dogs mentor ended on an unjustly inglorious note last year, is back in Sydney, refreshed, bright-eyed, ambitious, craving a return to the sport that will forever be in his blood. Give him a head coach's role at an NRL club, an assistant's role, a position as a strength and fitness conditioner, a Mal Meninga-style leadership role with the NSW Origin team, anything, anything and Folkes will shake the life out of it because this is what he misses - the blood and thunder of rugby league.
"My first priority is getting a job back in the NRL and wiping away 2008," he told the Herald. "It was an extremely disappointing year and I don't want to have that as my last. I've been involved in league for 30-odd years so it's hard to go cold turkey.
"I miss the players, more than anything. The week-to-week challenges of a footy club. The cricketers, they never hung out, you know? If it had've been a rugby league tour, I probably would have enjoyed myself a lot more. The guys from Trinidad would stick together, the Jamaicans would sit together, which I can understand, but the cricket scene is a lot different. You cannot beat a footy club and the people you get. The 11 years I coached, we made the finals eight times. I know I can do that again."
Folkes spent the past six months in the Caribbean and England, waking up in a London hotel room overlooking the Royal Botanic Gardens and Buckingham Palace and thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?", having dinner at Brian Lara's house and beers with Usain Bolt, rubbing shoulders with Sir Vivian Richards, taking a seat on the balcony at Lord's, swimming in luminous Caribbean waters, lying around in the sun in Barbados. He's come out of his "interlude" wanting the taste and smell of a sweat-drenched NRL dressing room and the hard slog of another premiership campaign.
"I think the change would do me good," he said of joining a club other than the Bulldogs. "I just want to get back and make a real good fist of it. Clubs are employing quite young coaches and that's fine, but I don't think people put enough emphasis on experience. It's not easy. Freddy [Roosters coach Brad Fittler] might be an example. He's a great footballer with a great football brain, but there's more to it. If it was just about the nuts and bolts of football, Freddy and a lot of others would be sweet. But you're dealing with media, you're recruiting for the next year, the constant man management of players is the key thing. People try to turn it into rocket science, but it's not. The most important thing is moulding the attitude of your players. I don't profess to being a guru with tactics but I can get the best out of people.
"I can get results and this is a results-driven business. In the 11 years I coached, we produced - not bought, but produced - around 25 international and Origin players. That's better than two a year, which probably only Brisbane can match. There's great satisfaction in that. Willie Tonga, for example. He played a little bit of first grade at Parramatta, got thrown back to second grade, was on the verge of exiting the game. We bought him and he was an international within 12 months. You provide the opportunity and the right environment for your players, mould their attitudes right and anything can happen."
The Dogs were the Johnny Dramas of 2008 with the defection to rugby of Sonny Bill Williams following Willie Mason's departure to the Roosters, a flurry of injuries and losses, the wooden spoon and the end of Folkes's reign as coach. He'd achieved a great deal before then. The premiership in 2004. A stirring run to the 1998 grand final in his first year in charge. The Dogs were shoo-ins for the 2002 grand final before their salary-cap breach. A Dally M coach-of-the-year award. No NRL coach survives a decade if they're not top shelf. At the end of 2007, Folkes's winning percentage was 60. That's formidable.
Nine Origin games for NSW. Six Tests. Two hundred and forty five games as a hard-as-nails Bulldogs back-rower. Just a dyed-in-the-wool league figure. "I know I could coach Origin and coach it well," he said. "What Mal has done with Queensland - I know Mal is a much bigger figure than I, but we played with and against each other at Origin and international level in a period when Origin was arguably at its best. Wally Lewis, Peter Sterling, Gene Miles, Meninga, that sort of vintage. He's brought some of that real Origin feeling back to Queensland. I'm not here to tell NSW how to suck eggs, or suggesting they suck eggs at all, but that's probably not a bad model to go with."
Folkes recalls NSW teams going into camp on a Sunday, bonding that night, smashing Queensland on the Wednesday. He suspects the fun has gone out of it for the Blues. That 11-day camps are too long and stale. He laughs at the recollection of being criticised for a lack of outward emotion as a coach, saying: "On the inside, my guts churned as much as anyone's." He says that when he asked his Bulldogs to jump, 99 per cent of them would say: "How high?" When he asked the West Indian cricketers to jump, they were more likely to say, "Man, do we have to?" That's not Folkes's scene. At the age of 49, he's done it all in league, had a break, returned with a determination to do a bit more. Anyone?
"I can get results and this is a results-driven business. In the 11 years I coached, we produced - not bought, but produced - around 25 international and Origin players. That's better than two a year, which probably only Brisbane can match. There's great satisfaction in that. Willie Tonga, for example. He played a little bit of first grade at Parramatta, got thrown back to second grade, was on the verge of exiting the game. We bought him and he was an international within 12 months. You provide the opportunity and the right environment for your players, mould their attitudes right and anything can happen."
The Dogs were the Johnny Dramas of 2008 with the defection to rugby of Sonny Bill Williams following Willie Mason's departure to the Roosters, a flurry of injuries and losses, the wooden spoon and the end of Folkes's reign as coach. He'd achieved a great deal before then. The premiership in 2004. A stirring run to the 1998 grand final in his first year in charge. The Dogs were shoo-ins for the 2002 grand final before their salary-cap breach. A Dally M coach-of-the-year award. No NRL coach survives a decade if they're not top shelf. At the end of 2007, Folkes's winning percentage was 60. That's formidable.
Nine Origin games for NSW. Six Tests. Two hundred and forty five games as a hard-as-nails Bulldogs back-rower. Just a dyed-in-the-wool league figure. "I know I could coach Origin and coach it well," he said. "What Mal has done with Queensland - I know Mal is a much bigger figure than I, but we played with and against each other at Origin and international level in a period when Origin was arguably at its best. Wally Lewis, Peter Sterling, Gene Miles, Meninga, that sort of vintage. He's brought some of that real Origin feeling back to Queensland. I'm not here to tell NSW how to suck eggs, or suggesting they suck eggs at all, but that's probably not a bad model to go with."
Folkes recalls NSW teams going into camp on a Sunday, bonding that night, smashing Queensland on the Wednesday. He suspects the fun has gone out of it for the Blues. That 11-day camps are too long and stale. He laughs at the recollection of being criticised for a lack of outward emotion as a coach, saying: "On the inside, my guts churned as much as anyone's." He says that when he asked his Bulldogs to jump, 99 per cent of them would say: "How high?" When he asked the West Indian cricketers to jump, they were more likely to say, "Man, do we have to?" That's not Folkes's scene. At the age of 49, he's done it all in league, had a break, returned with a determination to do a bit more. Anyone?
'I want to make it right," Steve Folkes said on his return from a stint as the strength and conditioning coach of the West Indies cricket team.
The former Bulldogs, NSW and Test player, whose highly successful 11-year reign as the Dogs mentor ended on an unjustly inglorious note last year, is back in Sydney, refreshed, bright-eyed, ambitious, craving a return to the sport that will forever be in his blood. Give him a head coach's role at an NRL club, an assistant's role, a position as a strength and fitness conditioner, a Mal Meninga-style leadership role with the NSW Origin team, anything, anything and Folkes will shake the life out of it because this is what he misses - the blood and thunder of rugby league.
"My first priority is getting a job back in the NRL and wiping away 2008," he told the Herald. "It was an extremely disappointing year and I don't want to have that as my last. I've been involved in league for 30-odd years so it's hard to go cold turkey.
"I miss the players, more than anything. The week-to-week challenges of a footy club. The cricketers, they never hung out, you know? If it had've been a rugby league tour, I probably would have enjoyed myself a lot more. The guys from Trinidad would stick together, the Jamaicans would sit together, which I can understand, but the cricket scene is a lot different. You cannot beat a footy club and the people you get. The 11 years I coached, we made the finals eight times. I know I can do that again."
Folkes spent the past six months in the Caribbean and England, waking up in a London hotel room overlooking the Royal Botanic Gardens and Buckingham Palace and thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?", having dinner at Brian Lara's house and beers with Usain Bolt, rubbing shoulders with Sir Vivian Richards, taking a seat on the balcony at Lord's, swimming in luminous Caribbean waters, lying around in the sun in Barbados. He's come out of his "interlude" wanting the taste and smell of a sweat-drenched NRL dressing room and the hard slog of another premiership campaign.
"I think the change would do me good," he said of joining a club other than the Bulldogs. "I just want to get back and make a real good fist of it. Clubs are employing quite young coaches and that's fine, but I don't think people put enough emphasis on experience. It's not easy. Freddy [Roosters coach Brad Fittler] might be an example. He's a great footballer with a great football brain, but there's more to it. If it was just about the nuts and bolts of football, Freddy and a lot of others would be sweet. But you're dealing with media, you're recruiting for the next year, the constant man management of players is the key thing. People try to turn it into rocket science, but it's not. The most important thing is moulding the attitude of your players. I don't profess to being a guru with tactics but I can get the best out of people.
"I can get results and this is a results-driven business. In the 11 years I coached, we produced - not bought, but produced - around 25 international and Origin players. That's better than two a year, which probably only Brisbane can match. There's great satisfaction in that. Willie Tonga, for example. He played a little bit of first grade at Parramatta, got thrown back to second grade, was on the verge of exiting the game. We bought him and he was an international within 12 months. You provide the opportunity and the right environment for your players, mould their attitudes right and anything can happen."
The Dogs were the Johnny Dramas of 2008 with the defection to rugby of Sonny Bill Williams following Willie Mason's departure to the Roosters, a flurry of injuries and losses, the wooden spoon and the end of Folkes's reign as coach. He'd achieved a great deal before then. The premiership in 2004. A stirring run to the 1998 grand final in his first year in charge. The Dogs were shoo-ins for the 2002 grand final before their salary-cap breach. A Dally M coach-of-the-year award. No NRL coach survives a decade if they're not top shelf. At the end of 2007, Folkes's winning percentage was 60. That's formidable.
Nine Origin games for NSW. Six Tests. Two hundred and forty five games as a hard-as-nails Bulldogs back-rower. Just a dyed-in-the-wool league figure. "I know I could coach Origin and coach it well," he said. "What Mal has done with Queensland - I know Mal is a much bigger figure than I, but we played with and against each other at Origin and international level in a period when Origin was arguably at its best. Wally Lewis, Peter Sterling, Gene Miles, Meninga, that sort of vintage. He's brought some of that real Origin feeling back to Queensland. I'm not here to tell NSW how to suck eggs, or suggesting they suck eggs at all, but that's probably not a bad model to go with."
Folkes recalls NSW teams going into camp on a Sunday, bonding that night, smashing Queensland on the Wednesday. He suspects the fun has gone out of it for the Blues. That 11-day camps are too long and stale. He laughs at the recollection of being criticised for a lack of outward emotion as a coach, saying: "On the inside, my guts churned as much as anyone's." He says that when he asked his Bulldogs to jump, 99 per cent of them would say: "How high?" When he asked the West Indian cricketers to jump, they were more likely to say, "Man, do we have to?" That's not Folkes's scene. At the age of 49, he's done it all in league, had a break, returned with a determination to do a bit more. Anyone?
"I can get results and this is a results-driven business. In the 11 years I coached, we produced - not bought, but produced - around 25 international and Origin players. That's better than two a year, which probably only Brisbane can match. There's great satisfaction in that. Willie Tonga, for example. He played a little bit of first grade at Parramatta, got thrown back to second grade, was on the verge of exiting the game. We bought him and he was an international within 12 months. You provide the opportunity and the right environment for your players, mould their attitudes right and anything can happen."
The Dogs were the Johnny Dramas of 2008 with the defection to rugby of Sonny Bill Williams following Willie Mason's departure to the Roosters, a flurry of injuries and losses, the wooden spoon and the end of Folkes's reign as coach. He'd achieved a great deal before then. The premiership in 2004. A stirring run to the 1998 grand final in his first year in charge. The Dogs were shoo-ins for the 2002 grand final before their salary-cap breach. A Dally M coach-of-the-year award. No NRL coach survives a decade if they're not top shelf. At the end of 2007, Folkes's winning percentage was 60. That's formidable.
Nine Origin games for NSW. Six Tests. Two hundred and forty five games as a hard-as-nails Bulldogs back-rower. Just a dyed-in-the-wool league figure. "I know I could coach Origin and coach it well," he said. "What Mal has done with Queensland - I know Mal is a much bigger figure than I, but we played with and against each other at Origin and international level in a period when Origin was arguably at its best. Wally Lewis, Peter Sterling, Gene Miles, Meninga, that sort of vintage. He's brought some of that real Origin feeling back to Queensland. I'm not here to tell NSW how to suck eggs, or suggesting they suck eggs at all, but that's probably not a bad model to go with."
Folkes recalls NSW teams going into camp on a Sunday, bonding that night, smashing Queensland on the Wednesday. He suspects the fun has gone out of it for the Blues. That 11-day camps are too long and stale. He laughs at the recollection of being criticised for a lack of outward emotion as a coach, saying: "On the inside, my guts churned as much as anyone's." He says that when he asked his Bulldogs to jump, 99 per cent of them would say: "How high?" When he asked the West Indian cricketers to jump, they were more likely to say, "Man, do we have to?" That's not Folkes's scene. At the age of 49, he's done it all in league, had a break, returned with a determination to do a bit more. Anyone?
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