Port Moresby: Willie Peters knows what it’s like to be the next big thing.
It’s a phenomenon he first experienced as a player, long before he was touted as an NRL coach-in-waiting, just like Craig Fitzgibbon, Cameron Ciraldo and Jason Ryles before him.
In fact, after bursting onto the scene as a fresh-faced teen for South Sydney in 1997, Peters was met with headlines that could have crushed a less hardy soul.
“He is a kid with something very special, and he’s going to dominate the premiership like Peter Sterling did,” former Rabbitoh Craig Coleman gushed at the time. “Coaches are going to have to change their game plans because of him.”
Willie wasn’t the next Peter Sterling. And, now that he has picked up the clipboard for the first time as an NRL head coach for the PNG Chiefs, he won’t be the next Wayne Bennett, either. But he will be wiser for all of his experiences since that heady debut in the Rabbitohs No.7 jersey.
“In my first or second game, it was in the paper, and people were literally comparing me to Peter Sterling,” Peters says.
“And people are going, ‘This bloke’s not Sterlo.’ I was 18, you know? It was tough at the time, but it built a lot of resilience in me.
“A lot of things happened in my playing career that built resilience to help with coaching. Now I understand what head coaching is all about … I’ve used my playing career to help me. When I finished playing, I was 26, so I found it difficult to finish so early.
“Then I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity in coaching – well, first doing sponsorship for the Rabbitohs through Shane Richardson – but I always knew I wanted to coach. I knew that period of my life would help my coaching, and it certainly has.”
Peters may not have had a Sterling career as a player, but he has the opportunity to enjoy a sterling one as a coach. Australian and England clubs have long earmarked Peters as a mentor of substance after a coaching career that has included unprecedented success at Hull KR and a spot on the Kangaroos brains trust for last year’s Ashes series.
The Chiefs job wasn’t the first NRL position he had been sounded out about, but Peters believes it is the right fit. It will arm him with a blank sheet of paper and a virtual blank cheque, given the tax-free wages he can offer prospective recruits.
It’s also a job he accepted sight unseen. The Chiefs trumpeted his signing in March, knowing they had to get in early before he was snapped up by another NRL club. Yet the 47-year-old only set foot into the country for the first time on Friday.
Sitting down with this masthead just a few days later, in the boardroom of the Hilton Hotel in Port Moresby, Peters isn’t second-guessing the decision after finally experiencing PNG first hand.
“The last club I was at [Hull KR] was a very community-based club, and I enjoyed that,” he says.
“Being a Rabbitohs junior and growing up with the Rabbitohs was working-class, which is very similar to Hull KR. Once I went over to Hull KR, you played for the city and played for the community. This is playing for a country.
“What we did for the community at Hull KR was unbelievable, but doing it for a country is that on steroids.
“It’s a start-up club, so being able to put a roster together and put staff together was attractive. For me, I’m big on people. Great people make a great club, so helping put that roster and staff together was appealing. I just saw the potential.”
The Chiefs proposition, for players, staff and their families, is a unique one. They will be living together in close quarters, at yet-to-be-built new residences at the Airways resort. The “family club” tag is bandied about loosely in rugby league, but in this instance they will need to be one, big, happy family for the venture to be successful.
“It’s certainly not going to be like going from A to B or C to D as regularly as you’d like at home, but it depends on who you are and what your values are,” Peter said.
“This is going to suit families, but it will also suit a player who wants to come over, knuckle down, and concentrate on his rugby league. Over here, what we want to create is a place for younger guys to come, knuckle down, focus on their rugby league, and flourish in that environment … Purely because there are fewer distractions, it’s a great set-up. You can still live a life that you can enjoy, that’s for sure.”
Peters has served under a number of prominent head coaches, most notably Bennett. Should Bennett be amenable, Peters is keen to glean what he can from the veteran’s experiences starting up the Broncos and Dolphins franchises. However, the philosophy he brings to the Chiefs is very much his own.
“The mantra I live by with the players is non-negotiable for me: competing with world-class effort,” Peters says. “That’s not a talent thing; it’s a choice. I hold players highly accountable around that.
“I want to bring in great people. My philosophy as a coach is building relationships and having a high level of care … Those are the things I hold players accountable to: the effort they put in and whether they’re doing their best every day.
“I like to get buy-in from players and have a leadership group that drives our standards and how we want to do things. I’ll build a framework with the coaches around attack principles and philosophies, but the competing side and that effort is non-negotiable for me.”
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