{"id":521954,"date":"2026-03-06T06:43:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/521954\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T06:43:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:43:18","slug":"how-craig-fitzgibbon-billy-slater-and-the-late-paul-green-moulded-the-nrls-latest-head-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/521954\/","title":{"rendered":"How Craig Fitzgibbon, Billy Slater and the late Paul Green moulded the NRL\u2019s latest head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWinning was in his DNA. He lived in the now, but never took his eye off the big picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cA perfect example of that was the middle of 2017 when we met for coffee one morning in Canberra. We had to win against the Raiders to stay in touch with the finals.<\/p>\n

\"Josh<\/p>\n

Josh Hannay returns to Ocean Protect Stadium on Saturday as a rival head coach.Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had already lost Johnathan Thurston and Matt Scott, and I said to Greeny, \u2018this is going to be a bloody tough game to win\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe turned to me and said, \u2018we need to come up with a game plan capable of beating Melbourne\u2019. Melbourne were streets ahead of the competition at that stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking about the Raiders. He knew we had to win, but was always thinking ahead, thinking of ways to beat the beat to be the best. That was the way he was programmed. He had that ultimate belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hannay spent the past five years working under Fitzgibbon at the Sharks, and when the job came up at the Titans, he was initially reluctant because there was a sense of \u2018unfinished business\u2019 in the Shire.<\/p>\n

Cronulla had made the finals four years in a row, and Hannay did not want to depart before the potential main act.<\/p>\n

He lost count of the number of times he met Fitzgibbon in the \u201cshittiest head coach\u2019s office in professional sport\u201d, discussing what he should do.<\/p>\n

Fitzgibbon\u2019s calming nature and ability to ignore the lack of external respect, which Cronulla will never receive until they win a premiership, also moulded Hannay\u2019s coaching philosophy.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he was feeling good or had a lot of crap on his mind, Fitzy was always measured, there was little fluctuation in his mood, and that rubbed off on everyone else,\u201d Hannay said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing at Cronulla also opened my eyes to how fickle the external side of the game can be with the media and expert opinions. We won a bucklet-load of games, but it never seemed to be enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m now at the Titans, we\u2019re coming from a long way back (16th), but I know not to try and please everyone, not to be driven to prove people wrong, or be influenced by outside opinion. All we can control is what we can control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hannay\u2019s apprenticeship was completed under Slater, who made him feel right at home when he joined the Maroons\u2019 coaching staff, despite being in the presence of Queensland royalty Thurston and Cameron Smith.<\/p>\n

Those early days in Origin camps made Hannay feel like an imposter because of the star power available to Slater.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Billy makes people believe in themselves and believe they can do special things,\u201d Hannay said.<\/p>\n

\"Josh<\/p>\n

Josh Hannay says Queensland coach Billy Slater is capable of getting the best out of his players.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe put that belief in me and made me realise, \u2018maybe I can be a good coach and work with the best players\u2019. That gave me enormous confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hannay is making the Titans players believe. One of those is Saturday\u2019s new No. 7, Lachlan Ilias, who replaces the injured Jayden Campbell. Ilias fell out of favour at South Sydney and St George Illawarra before landing on the Titans\u2019 radar accidentally.<\/p>\n

Hannay said he had met Dragons counterpart Shane Flanagan to discuss another player, only for Ilias to be mentioned in passing conversation.<\/p>\n

The Titans have lacked consistency for far too long. Hannay wants to change that.<\/p>\n

\"Lachlan<\/p>\n

Lachlan Ilias pictured during Titans training.<\/p>\n

There will also be some Cronulla flavour in the Titans\u2019 game, which Hannay makes no apologies for.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving been a part of what we created the last few years there, I believe in the way Cronulla play, it\u2019s a good style of football, and it would be hard not to walk away from that and take a few parts with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere might be some similarities, but at the end of the day, I need to be my own coach and have my own style. And I will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lifeline 13 11 14<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWinning was in his DNA. He lived in the now, but never took his eye off the big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-521954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}