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While Holbrook undoubtedly would have won the award had voting taken place this week, Newcastle\u2019s finals success is not factored into the final count with polling completed after the regular season.<\/p>\n
Either way, Holbrook was a strong contender for the award given Newcastle also overcame a string of injuries to climb from the wooden spoon all the way to the top eight under his watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to congratulate Justin for the year he has had,\u201d Webster said after accepting the Dally M Coach of the Year Award.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Trent getting to the grand final. It\u2019s something everyone\u2019s chasing. They\u2019ve done a terrific job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webster, however, is also a deserving winner after taking the Warriors to a second-place finish despite losing both halves Tanah Boyd and Luke Metcalf to injuries along with forward Jackson Ford.<\/p>\n
Classy Cleary accepts his first Dally M! | 02:47<\/p>\n
\u201c(I\u2019m proud) of our following. Just when it has got tough our boys have stood up. Our fans have stood up whether we go to the South Island or North Island, we are so well supported,\u201d Webster added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether we go to Brisbane. Magic Round\u2019s ridiculous, our fans take over. Our boys particularly, the way they play I think they do the country so proud.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re one team, one country. Having Fish this year has been special. I think we\u2019re everyone second team if we\u2019re not their favourite. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverywhere we go they want to be part of the Wahs nation. We took over DreamWorld this year. It was pretty cool. I\u2019m really grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upton makes history with 3rd Dally M! | 05:28<\/p>\n
Points differential was all that separated the Warriors from the minor premiership, and while the straight-sets exit in the finals was disappointing it did not come into consideration in Dally M Coach of the Year voting.<\/p>\n
It is the second time Webster has won the honour, having been crowned Coach of the Year in 2023 after lifting the Warriors from a 15th place finish in 2022 to the top four.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sold out Eden Park. It\u2019s not the result we wanted but to see how the whole country was behind us was special,\u201d Webster continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a good review. We\u2019re tight as a team and as a community we\u2019ll get back and work hard. There\u2019s definitely things we can improve especially in that moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get to the big dance, that\u2019s where you want to play your best football and we didn\u2019t and that\u2019s a bit that\u2019s going to hurt us all pre-season and don\u2019t worry we\u2019ll work on it and see where we go next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, it means Ivan Cleary has just the one Coach of the Year nod to show for Penrith\u2019s dominance since he took home the award in 2020 after piloting the Panthers to a surprise grand final appearance.<\/p>\n
Cleary also won the award in 2014 for Penrith\u2019s dramatic turnaround before being sacked the following season, only to return in 2018 and prove himself to be one of the best coaches in NRL history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand Warriors mastermind Andrew Webster has beat out Newcastle\u2019s Justin Holbrook in the hotly-contested race for coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-911047","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\/911047","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=911047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}